10 Thunderbirds Are Go: Haven
by Math Girl
Summary: After the loss of their father, the Tracys struggle to keep International Rescue alive, as the Hood and his minions strike at another innocent victim.
1. Chapter 1

Sorry. Just couldn't help myself. This begins back in the past. Not sure whether or not it leads to what has already been written. Thank you for putting up with another weird story...

**Haven**

**1**

_Early February 2062, in the mighty Peruvian Andes-_

Once, back when people had still believed that mere wealth could buy them protection from war, disease and destruction, a small elite colony had been constructed. Built amid the towering Andes mountains, it employed antigrav and weather control technologies to support a lacy structure of perma-glass, "mithril" and ice. Not _on_ a peak… any peasant could do that much… but suspended between the twin summits of Huascaran. Catching the sun like a vast, dewy web in the daytime, gleaming like new constellations at night… if you knew where to look, and got past its subtle diversion field. Haven.

The wealthiest, most powerful families on Earth had bought in, seeking refuge from conflict that no one could stop. Only, things had happened too fast. Assassinations, "surgical strikes", counterattacks, airline seizures, android armies… and then complete, total warfare. How long it continued was hotly disputed, until the newly founded world government declared that fighting had lasted for only three years. Some doubted this, but got themselves brain-scraped and packed off to Mars for their trouble. Like language, entertainment and faith, history had just been erased and rewritten. Simple as that.

In any case, Haven was never officially settled. Operated by a skeleton crew of young staffers, maintained by robots and shielded by state-of-the-art forcefield projectors, it hung between twin, lofty summits. Empty and waiting. Forgotten, because Peru's population had all been removed to Brazil for healing and re-education. Nature and politics hate a vacuum, though.

Word got out along a few secret channels, and people started to come. A few at a time, never enough to cause unwanted attention. Artists and malcontents, would-be revolutionaries and religious types, along with those who just couldn't stomach WorldGov's "peace and unity" mantra… all found their way to Haven. In a scant handful of years, the place was completely transformed.

Meant to shelter the wealthy and proud, now Haven bustled with street folks and open-air markets. The grand park housed vegetable gardens and a herd of graceful, snow-white alpacas (last on Earth). The elegant, gold-leafed ballroom was now a big, crowded dormitory. Replicators designed to produce gourmet delights instead churned out flatbread, soy cubes and strong, bracing tea.

Down on the flat tan saddle between snowy summits… the Garganta… crouched Haven's powerplant and machine shop. Mostly the haunt of robots and extreme non-conformists, the saddle was more prone to cold, thin air and high winds than the delicate structure above it.

Deep shafts plunged through the crust, to the source of grinding tectonic energy, beneath. All that free power meant that the silver-steel web high above had a shifting gravitational pull, causing "down" to be under your feet, whichever way you were standing. The sky and snowscape switched places smoothly as you walked from, say, Market Row to the observation deck or laundry pond. A heady, beautiful sight. Everyone wore a grav-belt or tether outdoors, but nobody thought that anything could ever go wrong. That disaster would finally strike, and WorldGov completely ignore them.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Tracy Island, in a time of confusion and heartache-_

Scott had done his level best. No one could say otherwise, without getting decked. He'd left the GDF air corps; placing himself on inactive reserve to take over his father's affairs. Only, he wasn't Jeff Tracy, and everyone knew it.

Sitting that night in Dad's office, Scott sifted through hundreds of files and accounts, learning all that he could before risking another mission. The balcony doors were half open, admitting a tropical breeze along with the jungle's wild, screeching music. Didn't help.

A cup of black coffee sat cooling at his elbow, but the newly de-mobilised pilot ignored it. Too busy. Yes, he'd pitched in with some of his father's rescues, before; helping Dad and Lee Taylor to shore up some crumbling bridge or snatch people out of a roaring inferno. Not too often, because the Global Defense Force didn't want its property jaunting off into needless danger. Enough to learn how to fly the Colonel's Thunderbird rescue craft, though. All of them.

In the stunned, hollow nightmare following Dad's seeming death _(no body recovered and no trace at all of the Zero-X spacecraft yet found)_ Scott Tracy had done his best to take over. Wasn't standing alone, either. Virgil had quit the academy halfway through his freshman year, racing home to the Island. John was on his way back from Mars with permission from Commander McCord, another of Dad's old flight-buddy/ drinking companions.

The kids… Gordon, Kayo and Alan… were still in shock. Each had reacted in their own way, after that public flight-test gone horribly wrong. Gordon plunged into Olympic swim training, using physical exhaustion as anesthesia. Working till he dropped, day after furious day.

Tanusha grew ever more silent and secretive; practicing her martial arts in the sim room, alone. Rarely spoke, hardly ate, refused all attempts at comfort… but maybe John would get through to the girl. He and TinTin had always been close.

Alan had turned to movies and gaming, just about vanishing into his VR zombie raid paradise. Yelling at him, unplugging his console, _didn't_ help. With the older boys gone and Gordon off with his swim team, Alan had finally started bonding with Dad. Only now, just like that, their father was gone. Destroyed in the flash of a swift, hostile signal and blinding-bright fireball.

The Hood's doing, or the Mechanic's. Scott wasn't certain. He'd just been left with the awful, gut-ripping aftermath of death and disaster. The pilot… oldest son, secret poet… sighed deeply. Switched off that holo-vid to lean back in his father's big leather chair, close tired blue eyes and stretch till everything cracked.

Somebody tapped at the door as Scott was still trying to force relaxation. The knock was a sharp _rat-tat,_ not at all hesitant. Not Dr. Hackenbacker, then, or poor, wounded Grandma (who'd taken to spending a lot of time with Uncle Lee). One of his brothers, most likely. Question was, did Scott feel like talking? Did he want to waste time mopping up somebody else's dripping emotions?

Still had that orange holo-vid afterglow burnt onto his retinas, from staring too long at Dad's action files. Yeah. Cold coffee, stiff neck, headache, no sleep. The usual. His trouble went deeper than regular physical ailments, though.

First Mom, then Granddad and now his father. What if it didn't stop? What if Scott was destined to lose everyone who'd ever mattered? Kayla Fielding, his girlfriend, had been shot to pieces battling smugglers, only three months, two days and five hours before. Scott couldn't help keeping count, from the moment that her voice had cut off in mid-call; ending with _"I'm on it, Gold Le…"_ before being drowned by sudden static and utter silence.

His visitor knocked again, and Scott had a decision to make. After a second or two of deep breathing, the pilot straightened back up and barked,

"Come in!"

Wanted… so much that he didn't have words for, except in verse that nobody, ever, would read. Didn't matter. He was in charge and he needed no comfort. Didn't have time for it.

Then the brass handle turned, and that big wooden door swung open, admitting another headache.


	2. Chapter 2

Many thanks, Tikatu, RVFan, Bow Echo, TaylorJ, Loot Queen and Creative Girl. =) The nice thing about going back to the past is that it feels like performing without a net. Less structure equals more freedom, you know what I mean?

**2**

_Huascaran, a tall double peak in the Andes-_

A certain fresh emigrant (blonde, lovely Penny "Winternight") saw it all happen. She'd arrived just a few days before, coming to Haven to make a fresh start. To live life by simpler, more natural rhythms. Or, so she told the acceptance committee.

Already, Penny had sampled work at the potter's wheel and the loom. Had spent an enjoyable morning tending alpacas with a crowd of cheerful and smelly young urchins. She'd even served stew in the big, noisy common room that same evening, finding it all perfectly charming.

In its way, the place was a paradise; small enough to have very few rules and only first names. She might have blent right in, had that been Miss Winternight's actual purpose. Only, matters didn't work out that way.

Twelve undocumented power shafts had been punched deep through the rumbling crust, many years earlier; reaching down to a long and unstable fault-line. Their presence had shifted the balance, far below.

As the Andes surged ever higher, this buried fault-line juddered and lurched, producing deep earthquakes and tremendous friction. In other words, energy. This was what kept the lights on and the shields up at Haven, until the day that something deep in that shaft-weakened boundary broke loose and just snapped. A rising magma plume, maybe, or part of an ancient, subducted continent.

At any rate, Atlas shrugged, and the mountains above began moving; lurching nine inches higher and six feet north in less than a minute. Huascaran Sud, the larger, flat-topped summit, jolted skyward much higher and faster than El Norte. Buried power lines buckled and sheared. A massive static discharge… like purple, reverse lightning… rode the cables and pipes straight upward; shorting out sensors, frying electronics and reducing the lower machine shop crew to piles of grey ash with shoes and burnt feet still inside.

Meanwhile, the lacy, web-like structure of Haven groaned aloud. It twisted in place as Huascaran Sud lurched still higher. Blazing with wild, arcing static, Haven glowed briefly white-hot.

The gravity generators and force shields failed next, sending hundreds of people shrieking from their perches to swing and bob on thin, sparking tethers. Others had their jetpacks fried by electrical surges. They dropped like stones; plunging hundreds of feet to the hard, icy saddle below.

Overhead, that stressed metal web began to come loose of its moorings, bolt by sheared, popping bolt. And still the earth rumbled, sending tons of snow and rock crashing past Haven. A wrenching, total disaster. But no alarms rang, and no help was coming, for the region was thought to be uninhabited.

Radios? Flares? Nobody had any, because Haven had been designed to evade detection, taxes and war. Only the glow of her own destruction signaled the colony's presence.

Inside the tilting, roofless grand park, soil and crops rumbled sideways. Bleating alpacas attempted to leap higher but lost their footing, tumbling straight for the park's curving rim, along with their terrified herders.

Some of the screaming children grabbed hands and held tight; seizing whatever looked stable and firm. Others just fell, shrieking and flailing, to swing at the end of their tethers; dangling beneath a thousand tons of collapsing ice, rock and metal.

With power out, the weather control system failed; sending fingers of wind and cold to strum at those buckling struts and snapped cables. Dragging the breath out of chilled, drying lungs.

All of this, the maintenance workers on Huascaran Sud watched helplessly. They'd raced out of their tool shed when the ground began shaking, followed by young Penny Winternight (there for her next friendly job try-out).

Now, amid shuddering mountains and clawed, freezing wind, her face lit by flaring static, Penny seized the maintenance chief's right arm. Her bag and certain… other items… were back in the dormitory; deemed as unnecessary for working maintenance as they had been whilst herding alpacas.

"We must create a beacon, swiftly," she urged the chief, over keening wind and faint screams. "Something intense and long-lasting enough for a satellite to detect! Fuel and accelerant, Gentlemen… hurry!" Something about her poise and determination must have carried weight, because those maintenance workers sprang to obey, gathering anything at all that would burn, along with their few precious gallons of kerosene.

The question was, would anyone notice their signal?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Tracy Island at nearly eight o'clock-_

Scott stood up from his chair, just in case. Turned out to be a good thing he did, because his visitor was Colonel Casey, another close friend of his vanished father. Worse yet, a superior officer; top brass in the GDF.

Tall and husky, with stern brown eyes and dark hair scraped back into a tight, severe bun, Casey wore her GDF uniform nearly everywhere. Even to bed, rumor had it.

Scott had not been expecting her. Wasn't fully returned to civilian life, and saluted, despite himself.

"Ma'am," he said, unconsciously straightening.

Linda Casey nodded in reply, briefly returning Scott's salute. They were indoors and needn't have done it, but customs and courtesy were deeply ingrained at the academy.

"Sorry to drop in without notice, Scott," she told him. "I still have a key along with the pass codes, and this is a private visit. What I have to say is entirely off the record."

The tall, dark-haired pilot felt his gut clench; the hard muscles of his shoulders, back and abdomen growing rigid with stress.

"Understood, Colonel. Please have a seat."

They were going to need perimeter sensors, along with someone to watch them, he decided, vowing never again to be caught by surprise. Sat down slowly, timing his descent to end just a little after Casey's.

She'd taken a chair across the desk from Scott; upright, calm and expressionless.

"Your father accomplished some remarkable feats. Unfortunately, his loss…"

"He's _missing,_ Colonel. Not dead. Nobody's found Zero-X, or… or anything else." And, until they did, he'd keep right on hoping.

Once again, Casey nodded. In a gentler voice, she said,

"I understand your feelings, Scott. We've kept the search going for nearly a month, now… but it doesn't look good. I'm sorry, I truly am. Your father was… _is…_ a living legend. What his absence means for International Rescue is two-fold. First," Casey held up a finger, as Virgil and Grandma slipped into the office through its half-open door. "The World Council wants to know what is being done with the Thunderbird Aircraft. I believe that a certain faction would like them impounded, Scott. Second," Lee Taylor, Brains and Gordon ducked in next, looking concerned. Word got around quick, in an organization as small as this one.

"…the council feels that an oversight committee ought to be put into place, with an agent onsite at all times, reporting on the progress of future missions."

Scott felt his blood pressure spike and his face grow hot.

"We don't need it," he grated, fighting to unclench his teeth and his fists. "A GDF agent would only get in our way, Ma'am… be one more potential victim to worry about."

Said Grandma, stepping forward,

"Colonel, Jeffery ain't needed no oversight committee, and neither do his boys. Jus' because Jeffery's… just because…" she couldn't finish; blue eyes all at once pained and watery behind her red glasses. First her husband, now her son…

Lee placed a big hand on her shoulder and gave it a brief, tender squeeze. Looking hard at Colonel Casey, he growled,

"Thank ya kindly f'r th' warnin', Colonel. We'll take it inta consideration… but this here's a family-run outfit. Them aircraft b'longs as much ta Doc, here, as they do ta Jeffery… or Spencer… or Vic an' them. They're…" The old astronaut paused a moment, searching for words.

"Intellectual p- property," supplied Doctor Hackenbacker, who was thin and intense; possibly smarter than John. "It w- would be, ah… be qu- quite illegal for the government t- to impound them."

Right. Scott took a deep breath, resuming control of that unwanted meeting.

"You said that you're not here officially, Colonel?" he probed, gazing fixedly at the stiff, outnumbered officer.

In a quiet voice she said,

"That's correct. I commandeered a stealth-flitter. Took it upon myself to come out and advise you that certain elements on the council would like to see International Rescue brought under stricter control. They wouldn't have tried it while Jeff was still al…"

"He's not dead," cut in Gordon, who'd just turned sixteen. Strong, fast and hard-muscled, with sun-bleached hair and a perpetual chlorine smell, he was all athlete and (at the moment) all mouth. "Dad's out there, somewhere… on a raft, or something. We'll find him, whatever it takes, even if you guys stop looking!"

An icy, tense silence fell over the room, at that. Colonel Casey sighed, slumping a little from exhaustion, grief and concern.

"Nobody hopes for his return more than I do, people. Jeff is… a very good friend. We've had some memorable times, and it's for his sake I came. I've said my piece. Would leave straightaway, only it's a long flight to Sydney. If you don't mind, Mrs. Tracy, I'll…"

It was then that dad's situation alert pinged, causing a wall screen to light up across from the desk. On screen, a big globe spun, settling with Peru facing the office. Part of the Andes lit up, in a location cleared out since the late 2040s. Scott grunted; his stress and weariness vanishing like smoke at the promise of action.

"Tell you what, Colonel," he said, rising so fast that dad's chair rolled backward. "Why don't you come along and take notes for the council. Looks like we've got some thrill-seekers trapped in a no-go zone by earthquake activity. Should be a quick in and out. A chance for you to see what we can do…" _without dad,_ he'd been about to say. Couldn't, though. Wouldn't let himself. Clearing his throat, Scott hurried on, adding,

"I'm fastest, but Thunderbird 2's a more comfortable ride."

Cut in big, handsome Virgil, smiling for the first time in days,

"You can go back to the crew cabin and nap, even. I'll wake you when we're on-site."

Colonel Casey scowled. Might've been about to enquire after Virgil's age, pilots license or flight experience, but didn't do it. Just nodded, instead.

"Very well, Scott," she decided. "I'll ride along and see how it goes. Personal testimony is priceless, where government decisions are concerned."

"Sounds good," Scott replied, already moving. "Captain Taylor, if you'd like to escort the colonel to hangar 2, Sir?"

His own rank had been just first lieutenant, but here, Scott Tracy was in control. In charge, just like his dad would have wanted.

"Be right pleased to," said his uncle, stroking that big brown moustache. "Might tag along f'r th' ride my own self… if'n that's alright with you."

Feeling it all come together, Scott nodded.

"Absolutely, Sir. Gordon, too. Depending on their number and condition, we might need some extra muscle, bringing out victims. Grandma, if you'll take the desk?"

Glad for the job, Sally agreed right away.

"Be with ya every step o' th' way, Scotty. Now, let's get Jeffery's Birds in the air!"


	3. Chapter 3

Further heavy edits! Still thank you and hugs.

**3**

_Earlier-_

What was a girl of breeding, wealth and refinement to do, once her education was finished and shopping had started to lose its luster? Once the pricey clubs and beautiful people of the world had begun to muddle and blur? Take up charitable causes, like her mother had? Devote herself to perpetual drunkenness, like her younger brother, Clarence? Seek high office, as her powerful father had done? Somehow, none of these prospects held much appeal.

Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward was unique. A rare beauty; charming, sharp-witted and deeply, insatiably restless. She wanted more than sumptuous meals, robot servants and exotic travel. Instead of following her well-heeled "set", she yearned for excitement and purpose. Bit of a throwback, Lady P. A hundred generations of Creighton-Ward ancestors beat swords against shields in her blood, howling for action and battle.

A taste for danger, combined with a massive allowance and busy, indulgent parents might have spelt ruin. Fortunately, Penny's eccentric aunt Sylvia had sensed her niece's longing. Might have shared it, herself. At any rate, it was spry, merry Sylvia who brought her 'round to the Secret Service, introducing the girl to people who spoke from concealment and seemed to lack names.

They'd given Penny very simple assignments, at first; playing upon the ease with which she moved in high circles. Turning her growing fame and popularity into the perfect cover. Mere tests, these missions were nevertheless quite exhilarating. In rapid succession, Penelope had caught an aging jewel thief, foiled an assassination attempt, and recovered a stolen clean-energy formula. All without breaking her aimless socialite cover.

She'd met several quite handsome men in the process, some of whom she'd had to seduce… in the line of duty, as it were. Then, when her handlers were satisfied that Penny could be trusted to manage out in the field, she began to receive truly dangerous tasks. This latest, for instance. At a ball-gown fitting, Penny heard her compact vibrate and started upright, giving the seamstress fits. She'd had to excuse herself to the loo, there taking that tight-beam, distorted transmission.

_"Son prominent official vanished in Peru. Agent dispatched. Contact lost. Suspect malfeasance. Download briefing, proceed to location and extricate."_

Not that she'd had much to go on but rumor. The only clue to the disappearance of young Reginald Mumford and her fellow Agent had been a single word: _Haven_. And now, on her fifth assignment, Penelope was here, standing atop a bare, wind-scoured mountain, hearing death and collapse.

A signal fire roared and snapped nearby. Too hot to stand beside, the blaze consumed the broken-up tool shed, a huge stack of dried soy-powder and all of the colony's reserve cooking fuel. On a site such as Huascaran, whose native people had long been removed, and where nothing should have been able to burn, that towering orange beacon would surely attract attention. At least, so Penny hoped.

Some of the workmen tried to give her their green, padded jackets, but she refused, saying,

"Thank you, Gentlemen, but we shall have to work together to survive this night. We can afford neither misplaced chivalry, nor losses."

Her personal flitter and driver were down on the plain, far below. No doubt, Parker was making his way up to find her, but silently; without breaking her cover as Penny Winternight, seeker of Truth and Simplicity. In the meantime, through exposure to bitter cold and neck-wrenching falls, people were dying.

"Do you think anyone'll see the signal?" One of the workers pled, looking weary and anxious. In the sinuous firelight, his face seemed to change its shape constantly; with deep-shadowed eyes and oddly shifting angles.

Penelope gave him a firm, assured nod, refusing to acknowledge her own thirst and hunger.

"Indeed, I do, Esteban," she told him. "The Colonel may have vanished, but International Rescue remains in action. One of their pilots is surely speeding our way."

As hungry flames licked up the dry wood, crumpled plastic and piled foodstuffs, Penny turned her head to gaze upward. Soon, the sun would rise, hiding their beacon from sight. And then, once it burnt out, there would only be wind, frigid cold and the hard, pure light of the Andes.

"A Creighton-Ward is never daunted," Penny whispered, reminding herself.

If the signal failed, she'd simply have to climb into Haven, seeking the wherewithal to produce some sort of electronic SOS. Peace and Unity alone knew where her bag and compact lay… perhaps smashed to bits on the Garganta, below. At any rate, out of reach.

Head high, standing proud and erect, Penelope pretended not to notice the four men forming a human windbreak; as though with their massed bodies they could shield her from breath-snatching, mummy-dry cold. Their leader spoke up next, raising his voice over fire, high wind and faint screams.

"Once the sun's up, I'll head back in there and see if I can't bring some folks off," he decided, lowering his head into the turned-up collar of his jacket. Penny smiled at him.

"I shall come, as well, Luca. It may be that a small, slight person can enter places that would balk a larger one."

The dark-haired foreman started to object. Only, she was right, and everyone knew it. He'd be a fool to turn away help, no matter its source. Shrugging and grunting, Luca glanced away from Penny, who was doing less well than she seemed.

Standing just a few yards from the blaze, Penelope was icy cold at one side, blistering hot on the other unless she kept shifting position. Her breath would have misted, had the wind not torn it right out of her lungs. She'd begun to grow stiff, as well; forced to stamp her feet and tuck both hands into the armpits of her thin jacket in hopes of regaining some feeling.

And still, in the darkness beyond, Penny could hear tortured metal and fracturing stone, along with fast-fading cries for help. Didn't like to imagine what it must be like, hanging below that crumpling city on a thin, spinning tether. As for Reginald Mumford, her quarry, Penelope hadn't yet found him. Agent Blue, either. But then… Haven kept no record of those who came but were not accepted. Were they in there, somewhere? Or buried, perhaps, in one of the bare, lonely graves she'd spotted, below? A place like Haven had to stay secret; meaning that there was only one way to leave it.

Lost in dark thoughts and insidious cold, Penelope was caught by surprise when a sudden bright floodlight snapped on. Downdraft blowing the flames nearly flat…muted engine noise shaking the rocks and ice at her feet… and then an amplified, booming voice, calling,

"This is Thunderbird 1, Scott Tracy speaking. Stand by for evacuation!"


	4. Chapter 4

Hi, there! Thanks for coming along. ;) Edited.

**4**

_Tracy Island, less than an hour before-_

Having piloted each of Jeff Tracy's Birds, Scott had developed a particular liking for Thunderbird 1. Firstly, for its sheer lightning speed and maneuverability. The tall, silver rocket plane was first to the action, every time, and that's just how he liked it.

Secondly, the former fighter pilot preferred its relative ease of access. Elevators and rolling gantries beat backward slides and handlebar death-drops, any day. Sure, he got that Dad and Lee had wanted to stay fit and alert even in transit, but Scott only needed to get there. Skip all that fancy, gymnastic pilot-delivery nonsense.

Suiting up was another matter; currently managed in the supply room beside his lift car. Scott had managed to shave another few minutes off his prep time but figured there had to be a better way to get dressed for a mission. Faster than yanking things on at a stumbling, half-asleep run, anyhow.

As Lee, Gordon and Colonel Casey strode down to hangar 2… as Virgil rode the slide from hell, Grandma's kiss still warming his cheek… Scott stepped onto a rapid-drop lift. Was still fastening sash and bootstraps when the motion-alarm chimed. The car's walls changed from green to orange. Then it plunged; dropping from house level, many hundreds of feet to the rocky caverns, below.

Dad had built deep, with help from Dr. Hackenbacker (who he'd always called "Brains") and a bustling army of robots. The hangar and lab complex formed a swiss-cheese tangle running to cliffside landing strip and undersea airlock as well as up to the family pool. Extremely Rube Goldberg, but Dad had the money, and no one said 'no' to Jeff Tracy.

Inside the lift, Scott sank like an anchor, counting the floors as he dropped. Reached bottom with head-whipping deceleration. Another chime sounded. Then the doors opened up, and he stepped from the whooshing elevator car onto a big moving gantry. Had to press a red button to set it rolling toward the command craft, Thunderbird 1. _Chunketa-chunketa-chunk,_ over concrete and reinforced power feeds.

The rocket plane dominated that vast, floodlit hangar; tall, slim and silvery-blue; covered in scurrying maintenance bots running their last-minute system checks. Scott had to smile at the sight of her, high as a five-story building and thrumming with power, engines already hissing to life. Not an Interceptor or fighter plane. Different. Better.

The gantry took him across a wide, windy gap to the cockpit hatch, already open and waiting. Trouble was, the pilot's seat had been built around Dad, who was broader than Scott and a little bit taller. Might have to make some adjustments, if… _No,_ Scott corrected firmly. Dad was going to come back. Adjusting the Colonel's seat to fit someone else would just tick him off.

Pushing the matter aside, Scott entered the cockpit, sat down and strapped in. The canopy hissed shut and sealed tight, as screens came to life all around him. For an instant or two, he saw his own reflection; haggard and weary; blue eyes seamed with buried pain and crushing responsibility. Right. A swift jab to the main console brought up his situation report, dispelling that unwanted ghost.

As soon as Scott keyed in her launch sequence, the Bird began moving; riding her track to the silo beneath Tracy Island's wide pool. (An engineering marvel in itself, considering the weight of water, and how close to the house all this was.) Not a long ride, but time enough to read through his mission data. The engines began their run-up, growing slowly louder as he scanned a few lines of sparse, quick-scrolling intel. _Fiery beacon spotted on Huascaran's southern peak, where trespass is strictly forbidden… no missing ships or crashed planes reported…_

Of course, Dr. Questa was known to frequent the Andes, but not in that region and never for long. The GDF always caught and transported that bearded, doomsaying volcanologist. Not a stranded science team, probably. He'd have to figure things out once he got there, Scott supposed, hunting around for his aspirin.

Got some comm chatter from Virgil and Lee, who were close to launch, as well. Then Thunderbird 1 reached her silo. The pool overhead began rumbling aside; framing darkness like a slowly opening eye. Seconds later, Grandma spoke up, saying,

"You boys be careful, out there. I got a feelin' that somethin' ain't right."

"I'm always careful, Grandma," said Scott. "It's why I'm still here."

_"I'm_ th' one specializes in bonehead stunts," drawled Lee, over the comm. "But Spence an' Vic, here'll keep me straight, jus' like their daddy always done."

_And will do again,_ Scott argued, silent and fierce. The countdown had started, flashing backward from five. For some reason, the tall, blue-eyed pilot always heard those numbers barked in his father's stern voice.

_Five… four… three… two… __one__._

Engine noise rose from snarl to shriek and then wild, screaming howl. Next her impellers cut on, sending Thunderbird 1 surging out of her silo and into that star-pocked sky, slamming her pilot against his seat. For a few minutes, Scott was too busy to marvel. He had to reorient his cockpit as the Bird went from vertical launch to swift, horizontal flight. And then, because Dad always had, he took a fast, swooping lap around the Island… but it was Virgil who cleared his throat and said it. A little uncertainly at first, the young cargo pilot throttled forward, announcing,

"Thunderbirds are _go."_

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Space, between Earth and Mars, at just about the same time-_

Had he been able to feel them, John Tracy would have been prey to some wildly tangled emotions. Dad had gone missing, presumed dead, after a festive, highly publicized test flight. The rest… the horrified crowd… Grandma's stiff, tear-streaked face caught on camera… Alan and Kayo's shocked refusal to accept what they'd seen… Well, he'd filed it away. Would deal with that later, when he had time.

Coincidentally, there had been a freighter launching from Mars Base to Pac-Orbital, laden with mineral samples and low-grav alloys. Before he knew what was happening, John found himself slotted in as its pilot. On the bright side, that month-long flight was packed with minutiae; calculations, course corrections and routine maintenance upon which crew safety depended. John clung to these tasks like the one floating board in a savage and turbulent whirlpool.

A few of his crewmates had offered comfort, tried drawing him out at mealtimes and rest… but the red-haired young astronaut wasn't interested. Opening up would mean poking a deep, awful gut wound. So, he kept to himself, answering efforts at conversation in monosyllables and working well past the end of his duty time. Knew the copilot's name… Hansen… but so far, nobody else's.

Seriously, what was he supposed to say? _'Well, shit. It's happened again. I've lost both parents, now. Can't seem to feel anything around this big, jagged hole in my chest, folks. No time to talk. Sorry.'_

No one could help him. No one could plug that wound. All he could do was stay busy and fly. Get home, where Scott was trying to handle things all by himself. Hadn't asked John to leave Mars. Hadn't needed to. Times like this, the family closed ranks like some besieged, tattered army.

Understanding that, McCord had _ordered_ him onto an outbound freighter. A good man and a friend of Dad's, Pete hadn't offered much sympathy. Just cursed a heartfelt blue streak when that time-delayed newsfeed came in. (Funnily enough, John had still had a parent twenty minutes longer than his brothers because, y'know, the news hadn't reached him as fast. For twenty minutes, he hadn't known.) That was then.

Here and now, Hansen came gliding into the battered flight deck, looking like she wanted to talk. But John cut her off with a status report, covering even the crap that just didn't matter, like cargo-shift and plastic recycling.

"John," Hansen cut in, trying to make eye-contact. _('I' contact. But 'I' wasn't picking up signals. Not today. Maybe not ever.)_

Evading the dark-haired young woman, John sent a data board floating her way, then pushed himself up and out of the pilot's seat. Gave himself just enough rotation so that he ended up facing the beeping, instrument-packed bulkhead instead of his crewmate.

"She's all yours, Lieutenant," John told her, adding, "I intend to spend fifteen minutes in the greenhouse, then eat and head back to my rack. Call me if anything happens."

Something within him was broken. He knew that. Talking to others just made it worse. Why didn't they get that? Why did they keep on pushing?

Hansen responded some kind of way, but John was already out of the flight deck. Swooped along the passage with occasional kicks and grab-hold swings to get him reoriented.

At the greenhouse… really just deep murky tubs of algae with a few confused potted plants thrown in for variety… he came to a halt. It was humid and yeasty inside. Loud with the constant churning of pumps. Lit up by sunlamps and overly warm, but deserted. Empty of reaching, chattering, mask-stripping crewmates. So, yeah…

John made his way to the lone porthole and rested his forehead on moisture-streaked, double-paned perma-glass. Just looking at stars and doing his best not to think. Shoving emotion way the h*ll back. Down where nothing could touch him.


	5. Chapter 5

Sorry to be so late with the update. I am once again living in interesting times. Thank you for your kind reviews, Tikatu, Bow Echo, Teobi, Thunderbird Shadow and Creative Girl. Will respond directly. :)

**5**

_Thunderbird 1, approaching Peru-_

A relatively straightforward flight north and east from Tracy Island brought him across the Pacific Ocean, to some of the highest peaks on Earth. Scott crossed the dateline on his way; moving from Wednesday evening back into late Tuesday night. Time travel, just like that; but not the kind that reversed disaster or brought people you loved back to life.

Anyhow, Scott Tracy flew high and fast, covering nearly a thousand miles in a scant forty minutes; roaring over the pale twinkling gleam of freighters, with their luminous, churned-up wake. Past ancient drilling rigs lit up with blinking red hazard lights, and one or two largish, inhabited islands. Overhead shone the distant stars and a tender sliver of moon. Lee's old home; abandoned to hard radiation and meteor damage.

Flying kept Scott too busy to think much beyond his mission. Wasn't expecting anything major. Illegal squatters… earthquake-smashed campsites, maybe. He let his onboard system plot the best course, and tended to the Bird, which had always been slightly tail-heavy in level flight. Took barely acknowledged comfort from her engine rumble and wind noise; her blinking instrumentation and the faint vibration of constantly shifting throttles and levers.

Flying brought him some peace, because Scott was never more at home than he was in the air, at the stick of a powerful jet. Caught his first glimpse of the Andes in shadow, rising like a massive, fanged lower jaw, far ahead. Thunderbird 1's night vision sensors kicked in, now there was something to see.

Impossibly tall and greenish pale, those jagged peaks seemed to swell in his viewscreen. Scott keyed on his mic without taking his eyes from the onrushing titans.

"Island Base, from Thunderbird 1," he called. "Approaching the danger zone. Contact in seven minutes from… _mark."_

"Copy that, Thunderbird 1," replied Grandma, sounding tense and concerned. (Felt weird, having a relative handle his missions, like this. The GDF would never have allowed that kind of thing… and now they wanted to set up an oversight panel.) "Intel says you got just enough room ta set down on top o' Huascaran South… and there seems ta be a whole lot o' new life signs out there, f'r a supposed off-limits area. Just turned up, sudden-like."

"How many's _'a whole lot',_ Grandma?" cut in Virgil, causing Sally's image to shrink over to the left side of Scott's comm screen. The husky, raven-haired pilot didn't seem overly worried. In Dad's hands, Thunderbird 2 had been known to rescue entire villages.

Grandma's image squinted, as though she were reading plenty of small, fast-moving data.

"Looks like fifty or so… but fadin' fast. My guess is, they was there all along, but under a shield."

Scott grunted, shifting around as much as his seat straps would let him.

"Earthquake must've knocked out their power. No telling what they've been doing, but it can't be official,"

…And none of the Birds were armed. Jeff Tracy had been absolutely clear that International Rescue existed to save lives, not to enforce WorldGov's laws.

"Best keep clear till ya got th' situation figgered out, Spence," Lee suggested, his frowning image now crowding in there with that of Grandma and Virge. "If them boys is up ta no good, they might be desperate enough ta try 'n hijack y'r Bird."

"I'll play it by ear, _cautiously,"_ Scott assured them all. "Back with more, when I've got something to report. Thunderbird 1, out."

And then it was only him and the cockpit and night-dark sky, with a high, saw-toothed mountain range grinning ahead, sporting a tiny flicker that might have been flame. Scott switched back to full manual control at that point; feeling the same clear, icy tension that he'd always gotten, right before diving down onto fleeing pirates and smugglers. Would've armed missiles or lasers, had the Bird had any. Instead, he warmed up her electromagnetic grapplers. A fast and harsh magnetic lock could ruin anyone's day, applied correctly. It could also save innocent lives.

Lining up with that tiny red spark, the pilot banked Thunderbird 1; reducing her airspeed and altitude with complete assurance. Like John in space, Gordon in water and Virge with heavy, grubby, explosive messes, Scott was completely at home in the sky. Had the gold wings and jetpack to prove it, too.

Steering the long silver rocket plane involved controlling her engines and sleek, adjustable wings. Touchy work, but Scott had been taught by the best. Now, he came swooping around that hulking, double-peaked mountain and saw…

A vast, collapsing metal web, strung between two giant peaks where no structure should have been. As aftershocks continued to rock the landscape, he spotted showers of sparks and the faint glow of lifeforms, some broken and fading; some dangling beneath the city like fallen climbers whipped by a screaming wind. Hard by that crumpling city he glimpsed the original signal fire; surging and clawing like magma inside a volcanic caldera. Around it, saw a handful of pale, upturned faces. Keeping well clear of that huge, sagging structure, Scott cut on his brights. Then,

"This is Thunderbird 1, Scott Tracy speaking," he announced over the Bird's booming amplifiers. "Prepare for evacuation."

It was a whole outlaw settlement; hidden away for God knew how long on a cold, arid mountaintop. Scott muttered a string of sharp oaths but began taking scans for relay up through the unmanned station… Thunderbird 5… to Island Base. Snapped,

"On-site. We've got some kind of big, metal bridge here… or… it looks like a spiderweb, with buildings, houses and multiple trapped occupants. High winds, earthquake damage and continuing aftershocks. I'm going to need Thunderbird 2, as fast as she can get here, and a plan to keep what's left of the structure in place."

"Understood, S- Scott," said Brains. "Analyzing the, ah… the d- data."

On one-fourth impeller Scott Tracy throttled back and began to descend, hunting a place to safely grapple that vast city-bridge before it crumpled away entirely.

Whatever their reason for being here… whatever they'd done… these people needed help, and nobody else could provide it. Dropping lower, Scott lined up the sights on his magnetic grappler, waiting for two dancing red triangles to meld into green. Waiting for Dr. Hackenbacker to come back with some kind of workable strategy. Hit the wrong spot, and he'd just make the structure collapse even faster or tear itself apart. Meanwhile, people were dying of terror, shock and that grim, arctic cold.

"Brains…!?"

"W- Working, Scott!"

Then, as a 3-D diagram of the mountaintop city flared into life before him, its central joist blinking vivid bright green, _"Th- There,_ Scott! Take hold with, ah… with y- your magnetic cannon _there!_ B- But do not attempt to rise. M- Merely hold position until Thunderbird 2 arrives to, ah… to p- provide assistance."

Said Lee, over the comm,

"Nearly there, Spence. Keep 'er in one piece f'r twenty minutes, an' we'll do th' rest."

Right. Easier said than done. With the data fed into his Bird's computer, Scott slewed the aircraft around just a bit. Battling gale-force winds, he got those two triangles lined up against Brains' outlined target, saw green, pulled the trigger.

Thunderbird 1 juddered backward several yards, such was the power of her magnetic cannon. The clamp exploded away, trailing half a mile of hissing carbon-fiber line. Missed, blown aside by the wind; striking sparks from tortured and shearing metal as it rocketed past.

Scott felt his gut cramp. Felt icy sweat draw a wandering line down his back. Several calm, matter-of-fact statements about the ancestry and destination of that magnetic clamp found their way out between his tightly clenched teeth. Breathing deeply, fighting to keep Thunderbird 1 stable, Scott released the spent cable. Readied another shot; gloved finger curled round the trigger, waiting for green.


	6. Chapter 6

Hi, again. Just me, with a little bit more. =) Edits and responses (fairly) soon, once I've finished cleaning the kitchen. Edited!

**6**

_Tracy Island, in the physical training room, somewhat earlier-_

SLAM!

Her tightly wrapped fist thudded into the bright orange punching bag, causing it to sway and spin on its creaking long chain. Raised a small puff of dust and a stinging blossom of pain, which Kayo ignored. Her knuckles were already split and swollen, but the teenaged girl powered right through it, striking again and again.

SMACK!

The sweat of exertion ran down her face and into her slitted green eyes; burning like coals and blurring her vision. Her breathing was ragged, her muscles on fire, but Kay didn't stop because she _couldn't._

THUD!

Pivoting suddenly, Kayo balanced on one bare foot, bringing the other around like a whip; kicking that big leather bag off its chain and halfway across the room. Ought to have felt triumphant, watching it tumble and crash to the concrete floor. Instead, she raged at the thing, leaping over to kick it again and again.

Dad… _crack_…was…_thud_… gone!

BAM! (As the bag burst its seams and thousands of white plastic pellets shot forth.)

He'd been blasted to bits too tiny to locate, along with his fancy prototype spaceship. Right there in public, in front of her eyes. Once again, she'd been helpless. Useless. Unable to do a d*mn thing but watch. Stuck in the VIP viewing box with Grandma, Gordon and Alan, while Captain Taylor ran mission control, and thousands of people crowded the stands, down below. Her dad had been turned into blood-spattered vapor, all in one terrible, plasma-fierce blast.

Her hero and second father. The man who'd scooped her up and covered her eyes, while Uncle Lee piled their coats on the headless bodies of Momma and Papa. She remembered his voice, deep and comforting. Remembered the slow, steady beat of his heart, as he held her. His promise that, somehow, all would be well; that nothing would ever harm her again. He'd taken her in, made her his daughter. And now he was gone.

There might have been tears on her face but dripping sweat and smeared blood from Kay's battered hands hid any possible weakness. Didn't pay to depend on others, no matter _what_ they promised, she figured. This wasn't a movie, and life didn't work that way.

Max rolled up, then, having cracked her supposedly undefeatable lock-code. Well, John never taught all he knew, and the robot was sentient. Able to guess her patterns and learn from previous failure. She'd just have to try something harder, more subtle, next time.

Didn't snarl at the white little robot for breaking into the training room against her orders. He'd brought her another strawberry protein drink, which was all she could stomach, these days.

…and maybe she needed a break. With a noise that was half gasping sob, half grunt, Kayo stepped away from the ruptured and leaking punching bag. Said,

"Thank you,"

…when Max opened his carapace and held out a frosty-cold shake. Accepted the drink and a towel, before limping off the blue mat and over to a nearby wood bench. Slumped down, letting the wall and the air draw off heat. Popped the tab on her strawberry soy-shake and started to drink.

Max beeped and trilled at her; nagging like Grandma at supper time. Kay tuned him out, except for a brief, sweaty touch to his slick plastic head. Almost didn't hear the alert go off, because Scott, Virgil and Gordon took care of all that. She was a student. Like Alan, considered too young to pitch in with the family business. Didn't mean that she couldn't watch, though.

Chugging the last of that creamy-sweet shake, Kay next tanked up at the room's water fountain, then toweled off a bit; rubbing at sweat, blood and impotence. Spritzed herself with floral de-funk spray, then slung one of John's big, black hoodies over her workout gear. Green high-top sneakers came next, laced good and tight.

Kayo made no sound at all as she crossed the physical training room, except to thank the horde of small maintenance bots who were already cleaning her mess. A friend of the shadows (unlike her bright, handsome brothers) Tanusha Kyrano Tracy had the knack of seeming to vanish. She could open locks, blend into crowds and not be seen, if she didn't want to be.

Took her maybe five minutes to get from the underground gym to Thunderbird 3's unbarred tunnel, and then up to Dad's office. She didn't open the launch tunnel door. Much. Just enough to listen and peek through.

Saw Grandma, Scott, Virgil, Gordon and Uncle Lee talking to a tall, dark-haired woman in uniform. One of Dad's old buddies, from back in the long-ago day.

Something was going on, up in the distant Andes, Kay gathered. People trapped by an earthquake, or something. Scott seemed more interested than worried. Maybe just glad to get out for a while. At least he had that option. All she could do was stay home and beat up innocent training gear.

Quite when she got the notion, Kayo couldn't have said. Maybe when Thunderbird 1 and 2 were nothing but fading lights; their rumble and snarl no more than a sputtering whisper. Maybe when she intercepted and wiped that message from John: _Pac-orbital at 0320. Transport to Island uncertain. Will return ASAP._

Huhn. John would have to find space on a shuttle headed for Sydney, she realized. After that, maybe catching a lift on the weekly mail plane… or else… she and Alan could go there and get him, themselves; launching Thunderbird 3 on their own. A launch like that would be tough to arrange, because she'd have to disable the Island's security systems and central control. Grandma and Scott wouldn't like it, but once she and Alan were airborne and headed for space, Kayo could contact John, who'd have no choice but to talk them through orbital insertion and docking procedures. After that, they'd be aces. Right?

It was a breathtakingly stupid plan, born of the need to do something… _anything…_ or go stark, raving nuts. Dad would have backed her up, Kayo was certain. He'd have said, _"Princess, never let anyone tell you 'you can't'."_ He'd have told her, _"Go out there and get 'em, Kitten!"_ Just like always.

Very quietly, Tanusha eased the boarding tube door closed, slipping off into darkness and silence; forgetting exhaustion, her chilled, aching body and plain common sense. Her plan depended on speed, surprise and Alan… who'd cooperate, if she had to break both his legs and threaten his precious electric guitar.

Max might have been a problem, except that she'd long since ghosted Dr. Hackenbacker's securest files and found the robot's reboot code. Max would sleep when she told him to, as would all of the Island's weak, half-butt countermeasures.

Not for long. Kayo didn't want to leave Grandma undefended, with thugs like the Hood and Mechanic around. Just enough to get clean away and snag John. Then, well… Scott could hardly complain when they showed up to help, doing exactly what Dad would've wanted them to.

Thanks to those launch tunnels and maintenance access tubes, Kayo could race unseen from Dad's office, upstairs to Alan's room. He didn't hear her come in through the "Max door". Wouldn't have heard a brass band or a rutting tyrannosaur, probably. Too obsessed with his game score, there in the one little world that he'd utterly mastered. Kayo snorted disgustedly. Hard to imagine anyone retreating to fantasy, when times got hard.

Shaking her pony-tailed head, the girl lunged across Alan's cluttered, dim bedroom. He had shut all the windows, dialing their opacity clear up to "10". Earpieces jammed in on both sides of his tousled blond head, her younger brother was slouched on a chair, bleary eyes locked on his game screen. He might not have heard a meteor-strike or apocalypse, but he'd sure as h*ll hear _her._ Kayo reached over and snatched out one of his earbuds.

"Hey!" Alan croaked, making a feeble grab for the stolen white earpiece. "Give it back! I'm about to attack the Chaos Witch!"

His clothes were wrinkled, looking like he'd slept in them, sprawled right there in his rolling chair, or down on the trash-littered floor.

"You're about to get your butt kicked, if you don't get up and do what I say," she snapped, spinning the chair halfway around to face her.

Alan blinked. Pale, red-eyed and skinny. Flabby from too much screen time and not enough doing. Not a pushover, though.

"Get out, Kay," he ordered, face scrunching up in a threatening scowl. "I'll…"

The slim, scornful girl rolled her eyes.

"You'll do _what,_ n00b-mast3r 3000? Try to feed me that petrified pizza crust stuck in your hair? C'mon, I need your help, and you need to get out of this room."

She'd locked a hand on his twiggy right arm and hauled him partway up out of the chair.

"I'm not… _(leggo, dang it)_ … not going anywhere! My covenant 'll fracture without me!" Only, Kayo was stronger than Alan. Smelled better, too.

"Don't care. They'll cope or they'll die. In the meantime, we've got places to be. Now, _move it,_ Junior!"

They were halfway to Thunderbird 3, before Alan stopped protesting long enough to hear Kayo's plan. When she finished describing her notion, his eyes widened; sky-blue, where they weren't veined in red and surrounded by purple-dark shadows.

"Just… steal a Bird? Take off for Pac-Orbital? I'm not a dang hero, Kay! When adventure calls, I let it go to voicemail! We're underage! I'm twelve years old, and you're thir…"

_"Fourteen,"_ she corrected. "Almost. In a couple of months. Old enough for a learner's permit. And anyway, they'll be glad we did it, once we show up with John. Grandma said she thinks something wrong. _I_ say, Scott could use help, and John needs a ride. Now, are you in, or do I have to shred something you don't really _use?"_

They were jog-walking through the spaceship's boarding tunnel, not riding its trolley. No sense causing a fuss before it became unavoidable. Long, white and boring, the tube took ten minutes to walk through, once Kay placed its maintenance cams on looped video and shut off all the motion sensors. Max was already down; plugged into an outlet somewhere, compiling. Alan actually shivered.

"I dunno, Kay… We'll get in trouble. I don't want to get packed off back to boarding school. I want to stay _here."_

She halted long enough to give him a serious nod.

"Me, too. That's why we're going to show them how much they need us. You've flown Thunderbird 3 before, haven't you?"

"Uh…" Alan winced, looking down at his blue-and-white flip-flops. _"Once_. Sort of. In sim. It's Uncle Lee's Bird or John's, whenever he's here."

But Kay had stopped listening; was already yanking her reluctant blond brother down the wide tunnel, past a fork to the high, crimson gantry.

"We can do it," she insisted. "Not _our_ fault IR's understaffed. Just our duty to pitch in and help. It'll serve as a wake-up call, trust me."

Alan moaned fretfully, saying,

"Last time I trusted you, we got suspended from Unity Camp, and Dad had to come get us!"

Kayo flashed him a quick, mirthless smile.

"Exactly. Worked like a charm, didn't it?"

He shrugged, staring at the ground and kicking at nothing but bare, polished concrete. High overhead, the gantry clattered and hummed.

"Yeah…" Alan objected, "only, Dad never blames _you,_ Kayo. He'll be… he's gonna…" The twelve-year-old boy froze, suddenly. Then, as if something huge had just hit him, Alan Tracy started to cry.


	7. Chapter 7

Hi, guys. Thank you for reading! =) Will edit, soon.

**7**

_Huascaran, in the lofty and shuddering Andes-_

He was in full-on fighter jock mode; simultaneously hyper-aware and utterly focused. Felt, heard and saw… h*ll, _tasted…_ everything going on, but processed only what mattered. The trigger, his cramped finger, that rattling, wind-battered target. Flew the long silver Bird almost subconsciously, waiting for two crimson triangles to line the h*ll up and turn green. Then, between one breath and the next, it happened.

_Click._ Without a conscious decision, Scott pulled the trigger. Once again, a powerful magnetic clamp roared free of its housing, trailing a mile and a half of strong, carbon-fiber cable. Only, this time… call it good luck, great piloting or the power of prayer… the clamp struck true; hitting a curved central joist in the complex steel web-work before him.

The green triangle flashed in his heads-up display, indicating a firm, solid lock. Cautiously, barely detecting dawn's first, blushing kiss, Scott nudged Thunderbird 1 slightly higher, taking up slack in that long, swaying line. In moments, it went from whipping catenary curve to taut, humming tether.

The fire below him was dying, having wolfed down its smouldering fuel. Scott couldn't spare much attention for the up-turned faces around it. Just swung the floodlight around and dipped his wings in salute, calling,

"Thunderbird 2 is en route. Please remain calm and keep clear of the edge."

His own voice, ramped up to Zeus-level force, bounced off of ice and stone and bright, twisted metal. There wasn't much snow left, fortunately, or he might have started an avalanche. Patiently, the pilot inched his way higher, putting more tension onto that already straining line.

"V- Very good, Scott. Just, ah… just h- hold your position, until Thunderbird 2 arrives."

Easy for him to say, but Scott didn't argue. Just grunted aloud; tense enough to convert coal into diamond inside his clenched… fist. Couldn't relax and hardly dared blink, because that illegal city was huge and enormously heavy. Worse, each popping rivet and shorn bolt put that much more stress on the few that remained.

Nor had the earth stopped twitching. House-sized boulders galloped and bounced down the sides of both peaks, bashing a twisted, sagging steel framework. H*ll of place to put up an outlaw settlement, Scott grumped to himself. Why couldn't disaster ever strike at the golf course or bar, on free-beer-and-kisses night?

From his noisy, instrument-packed cockpit, Scott heard a banshee choir of screeching metal and crashing boulders. There might have been people-screams, too, but those were drowned out.

The sun rose, molten and fierce, cresting a high plateau. In its gathering light, Scott saw crumpled metal and dangling victims; most of them limp and unmoving, except for that knife-like wind. No way to get to them, either. Not while keeping their giant steel web from crashing down like a kicked-over snow fort.

There were people still left on the structure, he saw; some of them holding their arms out in hope of rescue. Scott muttered something white-hot as another bolt sheared, creating a miniature landslide and causing the structure to twist even further. Thunderbird 1 dropped nearly a hundred feet, torn from the sky by the sudden shift in her burden.

Scott throttled up, burning fuel like his tanks had no bottom. The winch motor gave out a long, ragged squeal. Thunderbird 1 juddered and yawed, fighting like a shark at the end of a hooked, baited line. Below him the bonfire crew had started to move. Looked like they meant to climb onto that slowly collapsing steel framework. Scott started to thumb his mic, again, then stopped himself. Intel put Thunderbird 2 still nine minutes out. In the meantime, people were dying.

Clicking the mic, he said,

"Be careful. The structure's unstable, and I can't hold it perfectly still." Not in this wind, with ongoing seismic disturbance.

One of the people below… looked like a female… waved an arm in response. Courage came in all sizes and shapes, Scott supposed. Not always wrapped up in high-tech machinery, either. Sometimes just local folks picking up buckets, rope and warm blankets, then running right into the danger, instead of away.

Switching comm channels, hands locked tight to his Bird's controls, Scott barked,

"Thunderbird 2, from Thunderbird 1! E.T.A?"

Caught a sudden flash of bright pink, topping the eastern plateau. For a heartbeat or two, Scott couldn't tell what he was looking at. Private flitter, maybe? Then, from another direction,

"Right here, Scott. We've got you in sight," replied Virgil, as Thunderbird 2 banked hard to slip past a towering scarp. Deep green and immensely powerful, the giant cargo-lifter circled once, letting Virgil and Lee get a feel for the situation.

None too soon, either. A noise like nothing he'd ever heard… part shuddering moan, part wrenching crash… seemed to rise from the tormented ground, itself. The mountains lurched sideways once more, shoving everything north. His magnetic cable snapped like a rubber-band; free end lashing backward to strike hull and canopy, denting one, cracking the other.

Suddenly freed of her burden, Thunderbird 1 jetted backward and sideways; slewing straight for the rumbling mountainside. Dad had reflexes like nobody else. Could've wrestled his Bird back under control and fired another magnetic grapple without even breaking a sweat. But Dad had gone missing; vanished away in a massive hellfire blast, leaving his family behind to manage the best way they could.

Scott was accustomed to flying a much smaller, more agile aircraft; basically, just two snarling engines, topped by a powerful gun. Now, he scrambled to regain control, pulling the Bird up and around so close to Huascaran Sud that her port engine scraped a long gash in the ice.

Meanwhile, Thunderbird 2 slid near on throbbing impellers, the force of her passage overhead grinding ice into dribbling powder and shattering already weakened stone. Someone cut on and reversed her force-shielding. An expanding blue bubble shot out and surrounded the stricken city, preventing further collapse.

"Awright," drawled Captain Taylor, as though he were back at home, discussing the local football team. "Ain't perfect, but we got us some wiggle room. Whut say I keep Jolly Green up n' runnin', whilst you boys go rescue some bystanders? Them folks looks mighty peevish ta me." The ones that could gesture and move, anyhow.

Scott regained control of the pitching rocket-plane; breath coming fast, heart hammering halfway out of his chest.

"Sounds like a plan, Sir," he responded, as that pink streak resolved itself into a halfway familiar luxury aircar. Now, where had he seen…?

No time to speculate. Too much going on to let passing traffic distract him. Forcing his mind back on point, Scott ordered,

"Virge, Gordon, suit up. I'll set Thunderbird 1 down on Huascaran Sud, then jetpack over to join you." Then, because that candy-pink aircar seemed to be trying to land, Scott added, "Heads up, we've got company."

"Long as it isn't reporters," groused Virgil, grunting and puffing his way into a heavy, super-strong exoskeleton. "I _hate_ those bloodsucking buzzards!"

The media hadn't left his grieving family alone, in the weeks following Dad's disappearance. Tried to sneak onto the Island… sent drones to shadow and eavesdrop as Grandma, Lee and the kids had flown home… tapped phone lines and stole their mail, even.

"Focus, Virge," Scott commanded, shoving his own bitter feelings far to the back. Dr. Hackenbacker started to speak, then, but Scott cut him off, saying, "Thanks for your help, doctor. It's under control. I'll resume communication once we've loaded up all the victims. If you want to be useful, contact the nearest hospital, and tell them we're coming in hot."

After that, Brains spoke only to Lee, Grandma and Virgil. Scott never noticed. Too busy fighting a kick-ass crosswind to set down on Huascaran Sud's flat, barren top, scattering the last few coals of the former signal-fire. Was halfway out of the cockpit and struggling into his jetpack when the next tremor struck.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Tracy Island, around the same time-_

Kayo scowled ferociously. She didn't know how to handle tears, having cried herself dry many years earlier. Now, watching Alan hiccup and sob, she kicked at the concrete floor.

Grandma would have hugged the weeping boy, but Kayo didn't have it in her to offer much comfort. Faced with disaster and pain, she tended to fight it, not break down and cry. Plus, they hadn't much time.

_'Ten seconds,'_ she told herself. _'I'll give him ten seconds to get it all out of his system.'_

Someone was bound to notice her looped video feed and Max's unexplained shut-down, any minute now. She couldn't afford to waste a second on useless emotion. Only, Alan was red-faced and shaking; crying like his world had been gutted and hung.

Kayo just didn't get it. When she was in trouble, she sought out her astronaut brother, John. Tall, strong and quiet, he knew when not to ask questions. Just let her curl up nearby till she was ready to face things, again.

"That's enough, Alan," she said, after mentally reaching '10'. "We've got to keep moving." John's freighter, F-36, would reach Pac-Orbital before _they_ did, at this rate.

"H- H- He's not really dead, is he, Kay? Scott's telling the truth?" Alan pled, streaming from eyes and nose, both.

She gave him an awkward _'sure wish you'd quit making a scene'_ sort of pat. Wasn't ready to talk about Dad, or what his loss had done to her.

"I don't know, Alan… but we won't find out if they keep us trapped here at home. Up in Thunderbird 3, we can grab John, help Scott, then look around at the launch site, ourselves."

Anything, to get her young brother dried-up and moving. Watery, tragic blue eyes met her cold, narrowed green ones.

"He could have ended up in the ocean, right? I mean, his flight path would've taken him right across the Atlantic."

…and WorldGov's fleet had combed every inch of that flight path, but Kayo just nodded, trying to look strong and certain.

"Sure," she said, taking his skinny right arm. Moving with seeming assurance, she hustled Alan into that tall, darkened silo. Normally, sensors would have picked up their presence and cut on the lights, but Tanusha had disabled pretty much everything. "Thunderbird 3's got sensors the GDF couldn't match on their very best day. We'll find him, Alan." But she couldn't bring herself to promise.

The boy brightened up, even so, moving along with sudden resolve.

"John 'll help, too," he announced, like his words could stitch up the past and take away anguish. "We just gotta go get him."

Kayo would have felt guilty for building his hopes, had she allowed herself any weakness. _'Let him find out on his own,'_ she thought, still smiling and nodding.

Fighting the urge to break something, the dark-haired girl fished out her cellphone and turned on its torch. Moments later, Al did the same thing, creating twin beams of shaky light that danced on the bottom eighth of a very high gantry and massive red engine nacelle. There was a lift, of course, but that wouldn't work without sensing their presence. They'd just have to foot it.

Looking up and up, Kayo and Alan peered through the darkness at Thunderbird 3's LED-outlined access hatch.

"C'mon," urged the girl, giving her brother a rough, friendly shove. "Emergency ladder. Up you get."

Then, there was nothing but reach, grasp and lurch upward, until every muscle was outlined in fire and every breath a dry, coughing rasp. She expected Alan… out of shape, soft as cake… to balk again, but he didn't. Surprised her by showing genuine willpower, reaching down a few times to help pull her higher, even.

Kayo thanked fate and her stars for whatever was going on in Peru that kept the adults too busy to notice her doings. Just a few more jelly-legged meters, past concrete, steel and curved, gleaming hull. Past maintenance panels too small to squirm through, and ticking, blinking status monitors, until _finally,_ they reached the aft hatch.

Kay paused a minute, pretending to stretch and yawn as she caught her breath. Then, shaking only a little, the girl reached over to take a shot at the hull-mounted keypad. Alan nudged her aside, smiling crookedly.

"Let me," he said. "I know how to do this. Sim-time, remember?"

Kayo shrugged.

"If you like," she replied, scooching aside on the narrow steel landing. Alan frowned, leaned forward and worked his magic; first popping the keypad's seal, then tapping in a short code. And…

"Ta-dah!" he crowed, waving one hand in triumph. "Presto-in-o!"

…the hatch hummed to life and hissed open, letting both weary kids tumble inside.

"See," Alan laughed, sprawling full-length on that cold metal deck. "Who says we never do things together?"

Kayo reached over and punched him. More affection than strength, and not much leaving a bruise.

"Less talk, more action," She told him. "We've got a freighter to catch and a brother to pinch, before anyone learns where we've gone."

Something had happened to Alan. Maybe the climb, maybe his own resolve to find their father, the Colonel. Whatever it was, new strength seemed to gleam through his eyes and expression. Leaping to his feet, the boy reached a hand to his sister, helping her up off the deck.

"We got this, Kay. Trust me. Get the launch silo unlocked, and I'll take her up… right through the hatch, if I have to."

Everything's simple, pure black and white, when you're that young.


	8. Chapter 8

Many thanks for your kind reviews, Tikatu, Bow Echo, Creative Girl, Thunderbird Shadow and Emmy (reviewing as me). Hope to work in some of those prompts that Creative Girl sent me, too! :)

**8**

_F-36, an old and creaking interplanetary freighter, en route for Earth; 0530, ship's time-_

The point of maintaining a schedule was that you never needed to rush, because everything happened according to plan, and in proper sequence. Except, people. Crewmates. They'd packed the cramped galley, making needless small-talk and taking their time over breakfast.

Hansen, Tibbets and Conroy; floating in mid-cabin, slurping their coffee from squeeze-tubes and pressing rehydrated eggs out of plastic pouches. Two of them wearing GDF uniforms ragged from use under spacesuits. They smiled and moved over a bit when John soared into the galley. Called out and waved. Trying, he guessed, to include him in talk of what they would do… who they would see… how drunk they would get… back on Earth.

Only, John didn't need interaction. In just a few hours they'd reach Pac-Orbital where (with any luck at all) an earth-bound shuttle would take him to Sydney. He'd be seeing family, soon. Grandma, Lee, TinTin, Scott and the rest. A perfect shitstorm of jagged emotions he couldn't evade by claiming duty.

Said blond, grinning Tibbets, jerking a thumb at their buzzing, much cross-wired re-hydration unit,

"Morning, Tracy. Conroy says you don't have the stones to try natto, and not throw it up."

Natto, fermented soybeans, was the single most repellent item produced by their mechanized galley, next to surstromming. John glanced over at Conroy, while braking his drift on a hull-mounted grab-hold. Conroy just shrugged, looking sly. Being part Asian, he had some definite ideas about food and intestinal fortitude. Hansen just shook her head, sending tendrils of dark, curly hair drifting around her like seaweed.

"It's incredibly gross. Should be illegal. Don't do it," she cautioned.

Good advice… but John had grown up in a house full of brothers, plus Tanusha, his wild little sister. Being told, "Dare you!" or "Do it, you won't!" and then backing down brought only scorn and disgrace. This had to be cured by beating the carbon waste products out of a snickering sibling… or else just taking that dare.

John inhaled sharply. He was due on the flight deck at 0545, ship's time. He'd meant to grab flatbread, eggs and some coffee, not defend the size of his equipment… but no Tracy, ever, backed down from a challenge. (And maybe his crewmates meant well. Maybe were trying to just "cheer him up".)

"Hand it over," John said to Tibbets, the crew's lone civilian contractor. The older man whooped, shouting,

"Get this on video, Conroy!"

He fished a square silver food pouch out of his blue coverall and then sent it spinning across the cabin to John. The pilot fielded it easily, still having a baseball pitcher's sharp eye and reflexes.

Yeah, so… even through dense plastic, the stuff felt slimy and weird; like rubbery nuggets swimming in mucus.

"What do I win when I get it all down and keep it there?" he demanded, staring bullets at Conroy.

"Respect," said his crewmate. "Also, my sister's phone number. She'd kill me if I didn't offer it, Tracy."

John was not in the market for romance but smiled a bit, anyhow. Being Jeff Tracy's son made him instantly famous… though now, both father and mother were gone; leaving the equivalent of a sucking chest wound in the red-head's emotions. There wasn't room in his life for much else but work.

"She'd better be worth it," he grumped, twisting the _'open here'_ tab on that metalized pouch, which… for real… bore a giant red warning label. At least (unlike surstromming) the stuff wasn't prone to explode. Anyhow, John got it open, held his breath, and started right in, like facing a platter of Grandma's worst stew.

There were… not adequate words to describe the texture and taste of natto, except that it brought tears to his blue-green eyes while searing nose, throat and stomach. The others darted away from the galley like minnows, gagging at the stench of John's unwanted breakfast. He got it all down, though; followed by enough water and coffee to submerge Thunderbird 4 at periscope depth.

Yeah. There were times when the Space Corps genuinely sucked; when high brass gave stupid orders, when paperwork piled up because others weren't doing their job, or when your hab blew a seal, and the whole d*mn unit decompressed out on the surface of Mars. But those things were only a part of the story. There were times when the backslaps and laughter included you. When people you worked with tried in their fumbling way to make you feel better. Like you could somehow have more than one family.

John **A:** didn't throw up, **B:** got a number he almost forgot to call, after the mess at Pac-Orbital, and **C:** felt somewhat better. (Except for an injured and roiling belly, that is.) Was late to his post at the helm that morning but, funnily enough, didn't much mind.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Huascaran Sud, in the midst of chaos, death and collapse-_

Lady Penelope followed the maintenance foreman… Luca… to the northern edge of their shuddering perch. The sun had risen at last, casting a harsh, stabbing light on the wreckage, below. International Rescue had arrived just minutes before; still flying missions despite Jeff Tracy's evident death. He'd been a friend of her father's and once… many years previous… the whole Tracy family had come to Creighton-Ward Manor, for Unity Day.

Penny recognized Thunderbird 1 and 2 from recent news vids. Different… more impressive… to see them in person, though. Especially when the one grappled Haven to halt its collapse, whilst the other wrapped up the city in shimmering force. Better still, her driver turned up; cresting a distant plateau in the vivid pink aircar gifted by dear, eccentric Aunt Sylvia.

Parker leapt forth as soon as the limousine touched down and its springs stopped shaking. As always, he flew like a get-away driver; jumping out with one hand jammed in his black leather jacket. Armed, no doubt, although she'd tried very hard to squelch his worst reflexes.

Around her father's age, Aloysius Parker was still quite fit from his years as a jewel thief and cat-burglar. Grey-haired, blue-eyed and stocky, the former convict was also completely devoted to Penny.

"Miss Winternight," he called out, striding across the stone- and ice-littered mountaintop. Much like herself, Parker never broke cover identity, no matter _what_ mischief threatened.

"Jenkins," she scolded, lifting her head on its slim, graceful neck. (Wind or no wind.) "I gave distinct orders that I was _not_ to be followed! I have given up all worldly ties in search of a simpler existence. Having found my true calling, I need no more riches or fame." (A claim which would have caused Mummy and Clarence to collapse in loud, helpless mirth.)

"Yes, ma'am. Terribly sorry, ma'am," said Parker, doffing his cap. "Only, Oi'm 'ere to 'elp you, 'owever Oi can. Reckon wiv 'er top down, y'r former h-automobile might whisk off a few uv those poor, trapped h-unfortunates."

Penelope allowed her mien to defrost, just a bit. As its pilot climbed out of Thunderbird 1… tall, handsome and _very_ serious… she said,

"Right you are, Jenkins! Capital notion!" Then, turning back to the bemused, waiting foreman, "Luca, may my driver offer a ride onto Haven?"

The worried fellow was swift to accept Penny's suggestion. And no wonder, as he had family trapped in the force-field wrapped city.

"Please, _yes,_ Penny… and thank you, Jenkins!"

"Call me h-Albert," said Parker, stepping forward to shake Luca's big, calloused hand. The warmth of his smile belied the driver's shifty gaze and huge, hawk-like nose, giving hint to the kindness and strength within him.

They were racing to Penelope's aircar when the ground below them rippled and bucked like a startled horse. When a second flare of wild static tore from the fault, deep below Haven.


	9. Chapter 9

Hi. Me, again. Got a cold, so might take longer to edit than usual. Please forgive any mistakes. =)

**9**

_Thunderbird 2, a few minutes earlier-_

The truth about Gordon Tracy? If he didn't know how, he wouldn't tell you. He'd figure things out his own way, by watching and listening closely. Humour, music and athletic dominance drove him, always. After all, get people laughing, and you'd defuse nearly _any_ situation… win over _any_ female, no matter how lofty or famous she was.

His gift for comic timing was family legend, as were the lengths he'd go to, to set up a joke. Once, he'd carried a folded brown paper bag with airholes poked through it for weeks, sometimes peering anxiously into the sack and crooning gentle sounds, always on the same note. Sprang the punchline on Virgil's 18th birthday. (A-Flat Puppy. You had to be there.)

Music, he used to distract himself; masking pain, exhaustion and worry with pounding rhythm and screaming guitar riffs. Could always do more, work harder and faster, with his earbuds plugged in. Now, he was down in the main hold of Thunderbird 2, riding a pod jammed with high-tech construction equipment and powerful exo-suits. This was only his third mission; already turning out tougher than planned.

The pods had no windows, meaning that Gordon could not see what lay before and below the rumbling aircraft. He could hear comm chatter, though. Virgil, Lee, Scott and sometimes Grandma, discussing what sounded like more than just a quick 'pick-up and go'. Over vibration and engine noise, the voices darted and jabbed.

"Whut say I keep Jolly Green up n' runnin', whilst you boys go rescue some bystanders?"

And,

"Sounds like a plan, Sir."

It was tough to follow conversation in that noisy and echoing pod, but Gordon got the gist, which was: _suit up and prepare to haul ass with both hands and a bucket._ Virgil loped in a few seconds later; sliding halfway down the access ladder, then dropping the last few feet to pounce on the deck. Good thing, too, because the sims he'd run didn't include how to work your way into an exo-suit.

His tall, husky brother seemed to realize this. Gave him a _'watch me and follow'_ sign, after thumping his shoulder, once.

"Ready to go, Kiddo?" asked Virgil, smiling at Gordon. They looked nothing alike; one being black-haired and dark-eyed, the other one blond as a tele-vid surf god; eyes between honey and hazel. Gordon shrugged carelessly, spreading both hands in mock resignation.

"The question is, are _they_ ready for _me,_ and the answer is no. I strike fast, and I leave 'em longing for more."

Virge rolled his eyes, aiming a cuff at Gordon's grinning, sandy-blond head.

"Yeah, whatever, Romeo. Gear up and let's roll."

The exo-suits were about twelve feet tall and crouched on a charging rack, when not in use. One… the green version… had '_Col. Jeff Tracy'_ stenciled in black on its left upper carapace. The scuffed, dented silver one was covered in bumper stickers and souvenir decals from every bar on Earth or in space that offered cheap beer and cute women. Somewhere below all that riot and clamour, Gordon felt sure, it was branded with _'Cpt. Lee Taylor'._

Doing like Virgil, the muscular teen climbed up a three-step access ladder, then keyed open the pilot's mount. With a sharp, hissing _**CLANG**_, it flowered like unfolding wings; making space to receive him. Next he had to step in, turn around and let the machine adjust; making contact at boot sole, palm, bicep and thigh, as well as his broad, sunburnt forehead.

Its heads-up display measured his face and eyes for retinal and attention metrics. Then, between one breath and another, he was no longer a swimmer crouching inside of a bulky and humming machine, but a strong metal giant; released from its clamps to stand upright and leap off the rack.

Even the shift in viewpoint felt natural, as though he'd been twelve feet tall and covered in stickers, all his life. A few yards away, Virgil spoke to the others. Practiced jumping, squatting and running in place, too, making that huge green pod thunder with echoes and robotic squeals.

Meanwhile, Gordon discovered that his exo-suit could fold its arms on its chest, scratch its sensory cluster and assume a bored, leaning posture. Then Lee called down, saying,

"Y'all ready ta drop, in there?"

Because, like it or not, the pod door was opening; letting in wind and cold like the blade of a dagger, and light much too pale to provide any warmth. Virgil gave their uncle a quick thumbs-up, saying,

"Been ready for hours, Sir. Just waiting on you and Scott to work off your arthritis and catch up."

Taylor snorted.

"Boy, I ain't taught you half a' whut I know. Best piece of advice y'll hear all day is, don't get pushed over onta y'r back, or y'r screwed like a drunk or a Goddam turtle. Unnerstand?"

The pod door had rumbled and screeched its way open by that point, revealing a tangle of silvery metal, mountains and ice, caught up in a bubble of glimmering force. Guided by Lee, Thunderbird 2 held position just over the wreckage.

"Yessir. We copy," Virgil responded, for himself and Gordon, both. But Lee wasn't finished.

"Also, them jets is good f'r y'r basic short hop, but don't push 'em too far. Ya cain't fly ta Mars, or nuthin'."

_Short hops, got it,_ thought Gordon, as he followed Virgil to the end of their launch ramp. Maybe he should've been scared, but right then, in biting wind and acid-pale Andean sunglow, with life and death in the balance, beneath, Gordon had never felt more alive.

He looked on as Virgil's big green exo-suit stalked to the end of the wide, tilted ramp, then fired its jets and leapt off. Looked like an emerald, anthropoid meteor, about to strike an already crumpling city.

His turn. Gordon didn't walk. Not his style. Instead, the young athlete kicked his decal-spattered exo-suit into a lumbering run. Whooped,

_"Cowabunga!"_ at the top of his lungs and then rocketed off deck; performing a wild, midair somersault. The force-shield had opened up straight ahead of him. Gordon aimed right for that circular portal, fighting the urge to make swimming motions. He wasn't in water, now. Had to control those powerful boot- and hip-jets with eye-flicks and thought, not muscle. Took some getting used to, which Gordon played off as aerial dance moves, while he dropped at the jackstraw mess of a city. Definitely, more than a few stranded hikers.

_(How many times had he watched news-vids of Dad and Uncle Lee? Seen them wearing these suits to plunge through blazing wreckage or collapsing asteroid mine tunnels? How much would he have given to be watching all this after practice, as his teammates joked, and Dad saved the day? Instead, it was him, Scott and Virgil, trying to help Captain Taylor fill some very large boots.)_

Anyhow, Gordon got himself oriented, letting the jagged horizon tilt back to normal from almost ninety degrees (and killing that stupid alarm). Switched on his music and aimed for a sturdy-seeming cross-brace, just as the earth gave vent to a bellowing rumble, and lighting struck hard, from below.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Tracy Island, close to the same time-_

Adults. They just didn't get it. Just because things had worked out, been safe, a hundred times before, they assumed that they'd never need a plan B. Saw what they wanted to, time and time again. This tended to work to Kay's benefit, and never more than today.

She and Alan had scrambled up to the cockpit of Thunderbird 3, not at all surprised by the speed with which they recovered from muscle aches and exhaustion. After all, they'd always been like that.

Internally, the long crimson rocket was fashioned to be navigated both tail-down, in a gravity well, and out there in space, where up and down no longer mattered. Still one beast of a climb, though, because Thunderbird 3 was tall, and mostly all engine. Took four minutes longer to get up there and strap in, then another quick five for Kayo to boot up the system.

John had shown her some of his favourite 'backdoors'. Others, she'd coded, herself.

"Okay," she told Alan, who sat in the pilot's seat, vibrating with hot, nervous eagerness. "I'm going to have to shut down the mainframe for three or four minutes. Long enough to open the hatch and initiate an undisturbed launch sequence. Sit tight and don't answer, if anyone calls. I've set up some vids of us in our rooms, in case anyone looks."

Alan's blond eyebrows climbed halfway into his scruffy hairline.

"How _long _have you been planning this, Kay?" he blurted, staring at his calm, composed and tremendously sneaky sister.

She shrugged, not returning his wondering look.

"It's always smart to be prepared," said the girl. "You didn't think I was in there all day studying _'Peace in Modern Society',_ did you?"

"Guess not," Alan replied, taking hold of the rocket's controls. "Say when, and I'll start her on up." Then, "You don't think they'll reckon it's a malfunction, or the Hood stealing a Bird, do you?" A valid point, because protocol for a 'broken arrow' was immediate ocean-ditch.

Busy ghosting her way through Brains' intricate, insecure network, Kayo snapped,

"Don't know and doesn't matter. We'll tell them the truth once we're in orbit, too far to call back."

Which was, y'know, the dodgy bit, as Alan had only flown simulated runs from Island Base to Thunderbird 5… But, that's where John fit into her under-thought scheme.

Alan bit so much of his lower lip that half of his mouth disappeared, almost down to the chin. Then,

"Well, it's been nice knowing you, Kay. If John leaves anything bigger than shreds, Scott 'll finish the rest, like they're playing tennis with corpses, or something."

Finished coding, Kayo looked up. Gave her worried young brother a quick, savage grin that did nothing at all to soothe his concerns.

"You worry too much," she said, as power went out all over the Island, except for a certain hangar and roundhouse. Punching a flashing red button, Kayo opened the silo's overhead hatch. Added, "Two, maybe three minutes before Brains recovers and takes back control. Launch, Alan! _Now!"_

He should have known better, but… pressed by more than just shining green eyes and a beautiful face, Alan Tracy fired up Thunderbird 3.


	10. Chapter 10

Thanks, AK47 Style Girl. =)

**10**

_Ever in motion, surrounded by chaos and schemes-_

Jeff Tracy's disappearance was not a misfortune to _everyone._ Some who had witnessed that launch, perhaps even sending that pirated signal, exulted in the colonel's fiery downfall. _Sic semper tyrannis,_ in the ringing words of an earlier age.

The Hood followed events with avid and shark-like intensity. He was a hunted criminal; real name and origin completely unknown to the human world government. Had to change his appearance and base of operations quite frequently in consequence, because the GDF was always in search, always listening… and always a step and a half too slow.

At the moment, he'd taken shelter in an ancient oil tanker, re-fitted with illegal weapons and his own crack, private army. Also… with one very dangerous, valuable tool.

Sitting on the tanker's bridge, staring fixedly at its central viewscreen, the Hood chuckled. He was a well-kept man in his fifties (perhaps) with a bald head and vivid, unsettling yellow-green eyes. He dressed impeccably, as befitted a future conqueror, and his ornate surroundings reflected the lifestyle that he intended, soon, to acquire. His voice, when he spoke, was well-modulated. Cultured.

…but he did not need to speak, to make others kneel. Watching incipient disaster unfolding up in the Andes, seeing his niece prepare to launch Thunderbird 3, the Hood laughed aloud.

"It seems that I have my choice of potential targets," he purred, from his throne-like seat on the bridge. The other man present shifted uneasily but did not reply; doing all that he could to resist the grip of his captor. The Hood ignored his prisoner's struggle, saying,

"Thunderbirds 1 and 2 are occupied in South America; distracted and weakened by mewling victims and their own inexperience… except for one feeble and drink-sodden old man. Thunderbird 3 is in the hands of Tanusha, who shall turn to my will like a leaf in the wind."

The bald man paused here, taking a drink from a wide, cut-glass tumbler. All mellow gold scotch, no ice; a taste he'd ripped from the mind of Jeff Tracy.

"The question remains," mused the Hood, setting the tumbler down on the arm of his seat, "where shall we strike? To which 'situation' shall I commit my forces?"

The Hood half-turned his head, speaking now to the rigid figure behind him.

"I could command an expressed opinion, of course," he gloated, "but your thoughts hardly matter. You shall do as I bid you, go where you're sent. Kill whomever you're told to."

Laughing once more, the Hood flung his drink across the cabin, watching in satisfaction as glass shattered and fluid splashed on the deck. '_Broken so simply. So irrevocably,'_ he mused. _'Much like the vermin who've risen to cover this planet.'_

"Clean it up!" he ordered, enjoying the feel of his captive's balked rage and near-animal fury.

The other man… No, not man. Not entirely. The cyborg fought his hold like a tiger; as if he'd been netted and snared and surrounded by crackling torches. It pleased the Hood to let him seem to make progress, to dangle the illusion of freedom, then snatch it away.

Helpless, controlled like a toy, the Mechanic lurched forward; his steps slow and grudging, his muscles bunched till they nearly snapped bone. Blood trickled from under his scuffed metal breath-mask, he was clenching his teeth so hard. Made no difference at all. Fight it however he tried, he _had_ to obey.

Cut himself stooping to pick up those daggers of glass, because the Hood had altered his senses, making the jagged shards seem further away than they were. The Mechanic refused to make any sound when injured, but the thing in his mind enjoyed it. Drank up the pain like a spider, anyhow.

The Hood tired of this game, eventually, leaving his puppet to crouch over bloodied glass, wiping stinging, gashed palms on battered armour. Turning back to the viewscreen, the Hood leaned forward, watching Thunderbird 3 rise like a crimson missile out of her island lair. Seeing Thunderbird 2, fighting to hold up a city of wretched and squirming non-entities.

"Now," he said, smiling his greedy, razor-blade smile, "to decide who dies…"


	11. Chapter 11

Hi. Further edited. Thank you. :)

**11**

_Haven, high in the lofty Peruvian Andes-_

Scott Tracy landed Thunderbird 1 and triggered egress in a quick d*mn hurry, allowing the rocket plane's onboard systems to power her down. The ground trembled and muttered below, causing stones to bounce and the last orange coals of that fire to scatter. A cold, shrill wind screamed off the jagged mountaintops, stabbing at chinks in his helmet and uniform. But Scott was too busy to consciously notice.

The pilot's seat was halfway extended, his jetpack partly on, when the ground lurched violently sideways. Thunderbird 1 pitched about ten degrees upward, then stated to slide, causing her forward landing skid to buckle like a plastic drinking straw. Scott was hurled from his seat, jetpack unfastened, legs not quite under him, yet; facing a hard twelve, maybe thirteen-foot drop onto juddering, splintering rock.

Something like lightning flared in a huge violet sheet from the mountain. Briefly lighting up metal and stone, it fried Scott's HUD to useless sparks and stuttering gibberish, left him momentarily stunned.

Scott knew how to take a fall… land on your side, slightly crouched, muscles loose… but still got the wind knocked right out of him as the ground rushed up like a home run baseball bat. There might have been pain, but he pushed that aside, too driven to focus on injuries. Overhead, Thunderbird 2 kept the mountaintop city from utter collapse, but how long could she carry that burden?

Panting, Scott rolled to his feet on a surface that wouldn't stay still. Got his jetpack in order and blasted out of the way, as Thunderbird 1's nosecone lashed sideways then downward, slamming hard onto rock and ice. Sparks flared. Metal screeched. Then,

"Thunderbird 1… Scotty, what's goin' on?" Grandma demanded, over his staticky helmet comm. The pilot goosed his jetpack, climbing up over the stricken aircraft. Said,

"Damage to Thunderbird 1, Grandma. Not certain how bad, yet."

It struck him right to the core, admitting that. In nearly ten years of flying her, Dad had never so much as _dented_ Thunderbird 1, much less augered her into a mountaintop. Grandma brushed that aside, saying,

"Brains is runnin' a diagnostic right now, Boo. Leave th' Bird ta him. You go take care a' them folks an' y'r brothers."

"F.A.B.," he muttered, repeating an old family joke. Heads-up display was still no more than a fritzing sparkle, off to the right of his faceplate. No help, there. He'd have to use simple visuals and old-fashioned dead reckoning, one red-hot emergency at a time.

Virgil was already up on the city, strapped into Dad's green exo-suit, tearing through a mare's nest of twisted steel beams and hull sheeting. Gordon hung beneath Haven by one metal arm, clutching what looked like a stringer of kids. Thunderbird 2 hovered close overhead; the low, throbbing pulse of her mighty impellers making Scott's teeth rattle. She wasn't as high as she had been, he noticed, meaning that most of the weight of that titanic structure was now being wrestled by Lee.

Cursing under his breath, Scott rocketed over to help evacuate illegal squatters, starting with those suspended on tethers, below.

"Virge, Gordon," he called, over comm, "each of you take a sector of the wreckage and clean it out. People _only._ Pets and property can wait." Then, before his brothers had a chance to respond, "Captain Taylor, how long can you keep this thing off the deck?"

His uncle's voice rang over the comm, as smooth and unruffled as ever.

"How long? H*ll, me an' Big Betty, here, c'n hold out f'r weeks, Spence. Send up some beer n' fuel, an' we'll manage th' rest. You boys do whut ya got to."

…which might or might not have been accurate. Lee had accidentally punctured his suit on the moon, once. Never calling for help, he'd patched it with duct tape, completed the mission and claimed to be perfectly fine. But,

"Keep me advised, Sir," Scott grunted, swooping up and around that crumpling nightmare of screeching steel and terrified people. Saw part of the bonfire crew soaring along a distorted main spar, in a halfway familiar pink aircar. Switching direction, he glided over to join them, leaving his brothers to handle the city's north and east quarters.

Matched speed with the luxury flitter, hovering even with its lowered drivers' side window. Cocking his head to peer within, Scott saw three men and a maddeningly familiar young woman. Struggling to place her, he switched his comm to loudspeaker.

"Where will most of the victims be concentrated?" the pilot demanded, skipping pleasantries.

Their apparent leader, a broad-shouldered, dark-haired man in a green jacket, shouted back,

"The dormitory and classrooms, Sir… west of the city centre! That is where we are headed!"

Wind, straining metal and occasional rumbling landslides played havoc with conversation, but Scott got the gist, and nodded understanding. Still no HUD or building schematics, so he'd have to play it by feel; let a native choose their path.

"Take the lead. I'll follow you in," he told them; all serious, businesslike confidence.

What followed was just plain risk and hard work; using the foreman's keys and the girl's agility to reach and extract people trapped within shrinking inner compartments. Using the aircar to ferry victims out to Thunderbird 2 and her auto-doc. Tenderly cradling a half-frozen child and (despite his own orders) two bleating baby alpacas, snatched off a stairwell just before it collapsed.

Not far away, Virgil and Gordon were doing the same; pushing past hunger, exhaustion and cold to keep working. Tearing through slow-falling wreckage while battling desperate odds.

See, cutting support beams was a delicate business. Slice apart the wrong one, and you'd place greater stress on an already sagging derelict, causing whole segments to flatten like cardboard. Virgil worked mostly by instinct; having an eerie sixth sense for where the structure was weakest. Somehow knowing just what he could shore up with quick, dirty welds and propped spars.

Gordon wasn't as fast, but he saved at least thirty lives that day (counting a woman pregnant with triplets). He hadn't time to be tired or scared or uncertain, because his exo-suit's static-fried sensors meant that _every_ room had to be checked. _Every_ faint noise followed up, all without causing more damage.

Of course, Colonel Casey summoned the GDF (having decided that International Rescue were in over their heads), but it took them several hours to mobilise. For quite some time, then, the Tracys struggled along on their own.

On trip after trip out of Haven, Scott, Virgil and Gordon blasted away from a scaffold of groaning, trembling metal to bright, chilly sunlight and breath-snatching wind. Through the crackling zap of that azure forcefield, into the rumbling warmth and packed hold of Thunderbird 2.

Colonel Casey took charge of triage, accepting rescued victims from Scott or that busy pink aircar, then splitting them up for treatment. What she lacked in personal warmth, the officer more than made up for in sheer efficiency.

Had it been only a rescue… had the place not been a stronghold shrouded in silence and blood… if Penny hadn't come there to infiltrate, spy and arrest… things might have turned out quite differently. Only,

"Scott?" Gordon called out, after a faltering voice lured him into the city's collapsing main hall, and a trap. "There's, um… there are some people here in the meeting room. They, um… refuse to leave unless you give them that flitter and find them more weapons."

What he didn't say was that two of them had their guns trained on _him_. That a cyber-lock had been snapped on his decal-spattered exo-suit, turning it into a giant paperweight. One of them, an older man with the deadest grey eyes Gordon had ever seen, prodded him with the business end of a pistol, hissing,

"Tell them to leave the area, now. No calls for help, no mention of what has happened here, boy… or they will be using a vacuum and microscope to pick up your pieces."


	12. Chapter 12

Much gratitude, Thunderbird Shadow, Creative Girl, Walmar and Bow Echo. =) Sometimes, "IRL" is good stuff, full of reunion and very happy. I saw my son, we went to the beach and the movies. :') Edited more than that.

**12**

_Interplanetary space, on final approach to Earth-_

The long, lumpy freighter's flight deck was cluttered and patched. Noisy, lived-in and much repaired, like the rest of that lumbering cargo ship. Despite all that, John was at peace there. Just busy enough not to think very far beyond bringing an ungainly spacecraft home to her berth at Pac-Orbital. Could have been different though. Could have been _more_.

Had the Colonel's last mission succeeded, much more than just Mars and the Asteroid Belt would have lain within human reach. Vessels like F-36 would have soared onward to Proxima Centauri and Eridanus. Establishing colonies. Opening trade routes.

The key to all this had been Tiamat, the small, stable black hole that had once been misnamed "Planet 9". Jeff Tracy's final adventure had been launching the fastest ship ever built… the Zero-X… meaning to practice accessing Tiamat, using the hole's mass and spin to hurl him far across space, out to a distant star system. Getting back? Well, one thing at a time, right? First, prove that "out there" was even achievable within human lifespan. Only… it hadn't worked out that way.

Instead of reaching the stars, Zero-X had somehow been sabotaged. She'd vanished in a mighty blast of heat and light, apparently vaporized mid-launch, along with her pilot. John would have been on the following mission, joining Commander McCord and a reactivated Lee Taylor. He'd have gone out after his dad, daring the hollow dark between stars to reach a new home.

Whatever. Hurt too much, was too gouging-painful to think about, so the wounded young man pulled his usual stunt, and just shifted focus. Checked his orientation to solar north. Made slight corrections to his speed and angle of approach. Complex stuff, because he had to line up just right, reducing velocity in order to dock, rather than smashing right through the orbital platform and straight onto Earth. No brakes in space, and no way to crash-land a freighter. Slowing down meant burning up crap-tons of fuel; firing retro rockets while entering Earth orbit against the blue planet's spin, to generate extra drag. You needed a mathematician's head and a gambler's heart to pull that off safely. Fortunately, John had both, along with plenty of recent flight experience.

Earth had been growing steadily larger in the viewscreen; swelling from azure pinprick to pale blue disk, to her current shining, cloud-streaked magnificence. Very different from dusty, red-and-grey Mars. Pac-Orbital was just visible over the planet's limb, sparkling like a tilted oval jewel in hard, unfiltered sunlight. Twenty-two thousand miles and counting, through ever more crowded approach lanes. On the plus side, he was close to the biggest thing out there and moving fast enough to generate some gravity. Other traffic tended to sheer the h*ll off.

At fifteen thousand miles out, John checked in with local control, accepting the hand-off from IP to Earth, and receiving his place in the docking queue (sixteenth; they weren't especially busy, that day).

The way things _should_ have gone was, John waited in line, took his place at berth 23-Alpha, off-loaded a hundred-thousand tons of heavy, exotic ore, and then caught a shuttle down-planet-side. As usual, though, the universe had other plans.

He'd swept around Earth in a counter-rotational corkscrew pattern from pole to equator, dropping speed as he went. Nudged close enough to that big, whirling rig to see glowing windows, space-walking crewmen and plenty of darting security drones. Was about thirty minutes from bumping hatches, when he got a call on his private line, somehow passed through the freighter's comm. Tanusha, his younger sister.

Her speech seemed rapid, high-pitched and artificially cheery; like when Shadow, her show pony, took second or third at a ribbon event.

"Hi, John, it's me," she announced. "Guess what? We're coming to get you in Thunderbird 3. On our way, right now. Not exactly sure how to dock or get into orbit, though. Maybe you could help out?"

At just about the same time, he got an _'unauthorized launch'_ warning ping from the local Nav-sat. She hadn't left with blessings from home, then, or someone would have called in to report the mission. Bad enough, but longstanding protocol for a failed launch was 'destroy,' no matter who was aboard.

Right. Being John, he didn't waste time finding fault or shouting, _"What the h*ll do you think you're doing?!"_ Being John, he grunted in brief, blinking shock, then worked the problem. First called local control, assuring them that he had the situation in hand.

"Pacific Central Traffic Control, this is Lieutenant John M. Tracy, piloting F-36, inbound from Mars Base. Unauthorised launch is a Thunderbird practice flight. Do you copy? Repeat, unauthorised launch is a Thunderbird orbital practice flight. I am assuming control of the vessel remotely, over... a new access channel." Then,

"Send your coordinates," the red-head ordered, using his sister's tight-beam, pirated signal. Could imagine the frenzy at home, over this. Double-plus-un-good didn't begin to cover it… and he didn't have hands enough for all the manipulation he was about to engage in, so…

"Lieutenant Hansen!" called John, accessing inter-ship comm. "Flight deck, please. ASA-Possible." Then, "Who's _'we'_," he asked TinTin, as Hansen acknowledged, and Thunderbird 3's coordinates popped up. "You brought Max?"

"Nooo…" she hedged, sounding shifty. "It's just Alan. He knows how to fly this thing. I don't. He's here in the cockpit, but he doesn't want to say anything. He thinks you'll be angry."

Uh-huh. There was, in fact, a thin, white-hot line of emotion back there in the depths of his mind, where it couldn't get in the way of clear thinking. Yet.

John unstrapped to float up out of his seat.

"I will be," he promised, opening a link to Thunderbird 3 over the freighter's auxiliary comm panel. "Once you're safe, and we get back home. No time for it, now. Stand by, and don't touch anything."

Hansen came gliding in right about then, looking tense and ready for action. He'd interrupted her rest period, but no one actually slept through docking maneuvers. They only pretended to, in order to stay on the right side of EarthGov.

"What's up, John?" she demanded. "Bad approach? Fuel leak? Cargo shift?"

He shook his head, glancing at the short, worried female, then away.

"Visiting relatives," John explained, indicating a tiny red dot on the radar screen. By this time, navigational hazard alarms were beginning to blare. "I need you to take over control, while I try patching into Thunderbird 3 and flying her in."

Hansen's face did some rapid expression gymnastics, and John didn't blame her one bit.

"Uh… sure thing," said his copilot, coming further forward. "Can you even _do_ that?"

The lanky astronaut shrugged, drifting aside to let her flip into the pilot's seat.

"Don't know. Never tried."

… but he'd sure as h*ll have to make this work or face losing a spare brother and only sister to re-entry burn up. That they didn't know how to insert, what approach angle to take, was as obvious as Scott climbing back in through the bedroom window, after a night with this girlfriend.

On the bright side, Hansen didn't panic or ask any more questions. Weaving unruly, floating dark hair into a quick braid, she strapped herself into the freighter's main seat and headset, then called in the change of command to Pac-Orbital.

John, meanwhile, set out to hack control of a Thunderbird; something Brains had assured him couldn't be done. Neither he, nor Earth Control noticed the launch of a small, cloaked spacecraft. Speeding upward from South America, the vessel was flying a rapid intercept course, straight for Thunderbird 3 and her young, inexperienced crew.


	13. Chapter 13

**13**

_Deep within Haven, a slowly collapsing Andean city-_

"What? No! That's ridiculous!" snapped Scott, just about costing Gordon his life. Cut him some slack, though. It was their very first hostage situation, and he hadn't quite pegged what was going on.

See, Gordon Tracy had been working his way through a long, slumping passage; clambering past grind-sliding obstacles in a clunky but powerful exo-suit. He'd had to check every room and side-passage on the way, too, because a tremendous static discharge had fried his helmet's heads-up display, making him more or less blind.

About halfway down the passage, over hissing wind, fluttering cloth and straining metal, he'd heard a faint voice calling,

"In here! Please, someone help us!"

Being just sixteen years old and sometimes bigger of heart than good sense, Gordon plunged straight through a twisted, half-open doorway, chasing that call. Turned out to lead to a sharply angled staircase with steps and landings too small for his bulky exo-suit. The young athlete overbalanced, stumbled and fell, tumbling too fast for the suit's internal gyro to compensate. He plunged down the narrow stairs, booming and crashing like a steel rubbish bin loaded with ball-bearings. Fetched up in an oddly canted central chamber… some kind of meeting room… roofed in sky and torn metal, decked with fluttering tapestries.

Hit the floor blinking, head-shaking hard. Came back to his senses and tried to get up, only to have somebody snap a combat cyber-lock on his exo-suit's leg, shorting it right the heck out.

Yeah, about that… all at once, Gordon was trapped in twelve feet of rigid metallic junk; unable to shift his weight or twitch so much as a grappling claw.

"Huh?" was his confused response, followed by, "It's okay, you're safe. I'm Gordon Tracy! I'm with International Rescue and we're here to…"

"We know who you are, boy," said the man who'd locked up his decal-spattered steel suit. Old guy. Brittle, thin and expressionless; wearing some kind of shimmery greenish-grey robe. "…and we'll kill you, unless you do as you're told. Understood? Haven lives on, so long as her council survives."

Someone else handed the old man a slim automatic pistol, which he pointed directly at Gordon.

"Uh…" despite that cold, biting wind, Gordon felt sweat trickle between his shoulder blades and down past his spine. "I don't know what you want me to do, so I can't promise, mister. I won't let you hurt anyone, though."

Remaining completely impassive, the man reached over and tore off his captive's helmet, flinging it halfway across the big room. Then he reversed grip on the pistol and struck Gordon hard with it, breaking the skin at the athlete's left temple.

Fireworks flared in the rescuer's vision. His ears rang for a solid ten seconds. Would have fallen to the ground, had he not been strapped into that frozen exo-suit coffin. Gordon's heart hammered. His breath came suddenly harsh, panting-fast. No one had ever pointed a weapon at him, before. Still, he was Gordon Tracy, the Colonel's fourth son, and no coward. He refused to cry out or bellow for help.

The old man leaned closer, partly because the floor underneath them was shifting like saggy wet cardboard. Over the noise of on-going collapse, he snarled,

"Tell your compatriots to bring us that flitter and all of their weapons. Otherwise, I will shoot _you,_ then whoever comes in here trying to seek for your shredded remains."

…which would be Virgil, almost for certain. Caught unawares, his kind older brother would go down in a shower of blood and bits, just trying to save a few lives. Trying to do what their father had made look so easy.

Facing cold grey eyes and the muzzle of a once more switched-around pistol, the captive took a deep breath. _Stay in control,_ he told himself. _Keep him talking._

"You'll have to manually trigger my comm," Gordon explained, in a voice that didn't shake much at all. "Without my helmet, I can't contact the others."

The old man's eyes narrowed at that, as though he didn't believe that Gordon was telling the truth. Behind him four… no, _five_… other men stood shifting uneasily. Their leader paid them no mind, focusing all of his chilly attention on Gordon.

"Try to deceive me, boy, and you won't live long enough to regret it," he said, meaning every word.

One of his followers brought him Gordon's blue helmet, which had crashed to the metal floor, then gone skidding down the steadily increasing slope. This new guy, too, had a gun, which he now brought to bear on the trapped, shaken swimmer.

"Which button?" demanded the icy old man.

For a second or two, Gordon drew a total blank; unable to recall what the heck you pressed on the helmet mic, in order to talk. Then,

"Um… green switch, right by the pick-up screen. It's meant to be chin-triggered, if the internal system goes down." Or, y'know, if somebody yanked off your helmet and held you at gunpoint.

A loud, rasping screech tore the air as their floor dropped another three feet at one end. The other men scrambled to retain their footing, clinging to whatever they could that seemed stable. Furniture, tapestries… that kind of thing. Meanwhile, helpless victims screamed themselves hoarse, and Gordon's suit began scraping its way downslope.

"Now!" snarled his captor, pressing the chin-switch and tilting the blue plastic helmet at Gordon.

He could die in this place, and he knew it. Worse, Virgil or Scott might blunder in trying to assist, and get themselves blasted to pieces by madmen with illegal weapons. He had to think. Had to stay calm and find a way out of this. Step one, warn the others… _carefully._

"Scott," Gordon ventured, after nervously clearing his throat. "There's, um… there are some people here in the meeting room. They, um… refuse to leave unless you give them that flitter and find them more weapons." (Armed and dangerous, in other words.)

He hadn't directly mentioned his situation, figuring his brothers and uncle would work things out for themselves. The old man must've thought so, too, because he prodded Gordon with the hard business end of that pistol, hissing,

"Tell them to leave the area, _now._ No calls for help, no mention of what has happened here, boy… or they will be using a vacuum and microscope to pick up your pieces."

"Director," one of the watchers interrupted, sounding tense. "If we are to depart in safety, it must be soon. The city's destruction speeds to its end!"

The "director" started to turn on his worried followers. Only, that was when Scott came over the helmet comm; distant and flat as a butt-dialed call.

"What?! No! That's ridiculous!" snapped his brother.

The director's seamed, bitter face went ashen pale with balked rage. His gun hand twitched, and three things happened at once.

A: Gordon's urgently questing fingers found the exo-suit's emergency pilot release lever.

B: Virgil crashed into the room from above, plasma torch held like a sword, Lee right beside him.

C: The snarling old man pulled the trigger on his automatic pistol, clotting the air with bullets and thundering noise.


	14. Chapter 14

Short and mostly unedited. Apologies, it's been a tough week. Fixed.

**14**

_All at once, at the crux of three potential disasters-_

Crushed beneath the weight of his captor's will, the Mechanic at first had no choice but to do exactly as he was bidden. The Hood wanted Thunderbird 3, and so he'd dispatched the cyborg to seize IR's rocket along with its young, foolish pilots. Then, the Mechanic was meant to take what he'd gained and attack the others at Haven.

A simple plan. Quite workable, had the Hood had a willing ally instead of a murderous, bitterly struggling puppet. But every mile further away from his master's stronghold weakened the Hood's grip on that hulking cyborg, who'd begun to find ways to dig in and rebel.

Now, as the Earth beneath him developed a gentle curve, as air thinned and wind-noise faded, the Mechanic tracked Thunderbird 3. IR's long crimson rocket rose on a column of shimmering flame, but not at all gracefully. Barely seeming controlled, its flight upward was a shallow and wavering thing.

Nor was the red Bird alone in that. The Mechanic flew without having to touch his vessel's controls. Rather than manipulate stick or foot-pedals, he'd extruded a silvery data cable and jacked into the spaceship's main guidance system. Hadn't brought the vessel to life, though. Would do nothing at all to improve _anything_ marked by the Hood.

Instead, he steered a juddering, unsteady course; bringing him slowly closer to Thunderbird 3, his captor's goal. An uploaded slave virus would have been next, only…

XXXXXXXXXX

_Thunderbird 3, in the cockpit-_

"I thought you said you could handle this thing!" challenged Kayo, her voice like a scathing whip.

The rocket's trajectory was fitful, its engine noise no more than a choir of stuttering coughs. Alan shrugged miserably, facing a board full of blinking red danger lights. He'd had to cut off the alarm three times, already, and flat-out refused to answer the comm. Island Base and the GDF didn't have anything to say that he wanted to hear, right then.

"I said I could fly her in sim. This was _your_ big idea, remember?!" Alan shot back.

It was, and she did… but d*mned if Kay would admit a mistake.

_"Obviously_ your education's been sorely neglected!" snapped Tanusha, as though their situation was not, in fact, stupid, crazy hazardous. As though they weren't in crosshairs from here to the Moon, depending on John for a miracle.

"Hey, anytime you want to take over," Alan returned fire, shifting halfway around in the pilot's seat to glare at his sister.

A genuine argument might have erupted, except that John abruptly cut in, over Kay's private line.

"Okay, Al. I need you listen closely and do exactly as I say. I'll be talking fast, so keep up. You even pause to say 'huh?" and that Bird 'll burn up on reentry or get blasted to atoms by GDF Interceptors." (Who were already gathering, despite John's assurance that he had things under control.)

Alan gulped like a landed fish but nodded his head.

"Got it. I'm listening, John," he replied, hating the squeaky crack in his voice, mid-sentence. Their astronaut brother seemed not to notice.

"Okay," he began. "Open the guidance menu. Scroll down to cockpit control. Click twice, then enable remote keyboard sigma. Under the mission tab, reconfigure the flight from live situation to training activity. Click back to comm settings, and set input to 473 MHz, on high gain channel 12. Find and click the access tab, then switch flight data to remote screen pi. Minimize back to the main menu screen, click status and then disable cockpit control."

Alan's fingers flew like he was a rock guitarist playing a screeching solo. Tanusha looked on from the copilot's seat, her green eyes wide as a hunting cat's… and windows to somebody else. Alan never noticed, making John's voice his whole world, acting in splintered seconds. After that last frantic tap and swipe, he panted,

"Done, John! Now what?"

"Now it works… or we fall back to Plan B," said their older brother, this time over the Bird's main comm.

"What's Plan B?" Kayo demanded, leaning forward as far as her seat straps would let her.

"I jump out the window with a couple of life vests and join you in the Pacific Ocean," responded the astronaut. Joking… probably.

But then the Bird's flight leveled and smoothed. Her engine noise settled back into a throaty and deep sustained roar. The sky overhead switched from day-shine blue to deep, velvet black, as Pac Orbital blossomed and grew on their viewscreen. That cordon of GDF Interceptors fell back just a little; not yet convinced, but willing to give them a chance.

Thunderbird 3's control levers and switches seemed to move on their own, guided by a distant hand and calm, brilliant mind. Kayo leaned back once again; slim hands laced behind her head.

"I knew it all along," she boasted, as they slipped free of Earth's gravity, beginning to float in their seats. Before them, Pac Orbital's glittering swarm of freight traffic parted like prophet-stirred waters. Maybe… just _possibly_… they were going to make it. Then, **THUNK****!** Something struck the hull.

"What was that?!" Alan yelped, thinking of drill-mines and lurking GDF fighters.

"Not sure, but I'm getting a sudden mass-change alert," replied their older brother, once again terse, grim and business-like. "Stand by, and don't touch anything."

Alan just about sat on his blue-gloved hands, exchanging a glance with Kayo. Dying he understood. That happened to people in the line of duty, like it maybe had their father… but for something stupid? For a dumb-butt, ridiculous _prank?_ Once again, the boy found himself wanting to cry. Didn't, because he was a Tracy, and as much to blame for all this as his sister. 'Cause maybe, he should have been man enough to say _no._

XXXXXXXXXXX

_Just outside, in the cockpit of a small, cloaked assault ship-_

The Mechanic breathed hard; muscles bunching like boulders, machine parts flaring with sudden wild power. He'd steered his ship straight up to Thunderbird 3, then locked the small craft to her hull, just in front of an engine nacelle and gracefully curving white strut. Next should have come the slave-virus upload. Only, all at once, the Hood's grip on his mind fell away; as though something or someone aboard had blocked it.

The cyborg shook violently; gasping air like a man breaking the ocean's surface after a crushing-long time below water. He roared aloud, tearing the seat straps in his haste to get up; ripping his data cable out of the ship's comm port. Anything at all might have happened, then; Kane had no love at all for the Tracys.

… but freedom, release and escape mattered more than politics. All he wanted was _out,_ by any means necessary, whoever the h*ll he had to butcher and use in the process. Especially if someone in Thunderbird 3 could shield Kane's mind from the Hood.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

_Haven, far below and half a world away-_

Gordon squirmed free and dropped from the exo-suit's pilot cradle, tearing some skin in the process. He hit the deck rolling, trying for "fast and erratic" as opposed to "bullet-riddled and dead".

Shots whined past him like crazed, burning hornets. One tore at his right shoulder, slashing through cloth and skin like a fiery dagger. Virgil and Lee crashed down from above; one in a heavy green exo-skeleton, the other in just his hastily strapped-on jetpack. They drew fire immediately, crashing hard to the deck and then lunging after the shooters.

After that, it was total chaos; shouting, gunfire, high winds and the sharp stench of cordite; his brother and uncle, in danger.

Gordon wasn't armed, but he wasn't afraid for himself. Didn't have time to be. Springing back to his feet, the young athlete hurled himself straight at the screaming Director. Hit him hard and low, like a flying rugby tackle after the guy with the ball. Heard something crunch, heard the gun go off, and then…


	15. Chapter 15

Thank you for reading. Some of Virgil's thoughts inspired by one of Creative Girl's recent posts for Fluff-vember. Tikatu, Bow Echo, Creative Girl, Emmy and Thunderbird Shadow, as ever, you are greatly appreciated. Further edited.

**15**

_Earth orbit, on the flight deck of a nearly docked freighter-_

He'd been listed as 'pilot' on the vessel's crew manifest, meaning that John Tracy's presence was required on the bridge, whenever the freighter pulled in. He wasn't flying her, though; too much going on, down below.

See, his little sister had called in with the surprising news that she and his youngest brother were coming to see him. Now. In a stolen Thunderbird which neither quite knew how to fly.

With no time to dress down that foolish and dangerous stunt, Lieutenant Tracy 'd had to:

A: Figure out how to access an ultra-secure navigational system…

B: Relay instructions to a pair of young joyriders…

C: Divide incoming traffic and…

D: Remote fly Thunderbird 3 to a berth at Pac Orbital, all whilst assuring the GDF that this mess was a planned and controlled exercise which someone… Brains, Scott or Grandma… had somehow forgotten to announce.

On the bright side, he'd actually done it. Lieutenant Hansen had been called up to take the freighter's controls, while John focused on transmitted data and sensor-feed from Thunderbird 3. He'd managed a genuine miracle. That hastily coded remote access patch had _worked…_ until something struck 3's hull just above engine B and stuck like a magnetic leech. That last was pure guess work, because the rocket's hull cameras detected nothing at all but a slightly fuzzy, distorted area.

"Cloaked," John muttered, reworking all of his flight numbers. See, the unwanted hitchhiker had considerable mass; all of it bunched at one side, low on the rocket. The imbalance caused Thunderbird 3 to wobble and pitch, heading her straight at Pac Orbital's massive fuel storage tank. John had to adjust power and thrust from the other engines in order to compensate, wrestling 3 back under control and on course.

He'd sent a few artfully worded messages to Island Base as he worked. Just enough, but no more. No need to stir up the GDF censors or nudge all those itching trigger fingers.

Meanwhile, Hansen guided their ship to a docking berth. With occasional help from John, she brought the freighter past flashing buoys and clouds of darting maintenance bots, up to that giant, slow-whirling ring. She'd done it before, but he was the listed pilot, though currently flying another d*mn ship.

"Correct your drift," he told Hansen, while thinking on multiple levels.

Who was their stowaway, and what was his purpose? Was it safe to dock Thunderbird 3 with the orbital warehouse, or better to send her back home to a mostly unguarded Island Base? _Nothing but s__h*t,_ no matter how you looked at it; deep fried, piled up and smouldering.

As usual, John made his mind up in seconds, having parsed dozens of likely scenarios, all of them bad. Slamming his comm switch, he said to the GDF rep,

"Captain Carling from F-36, inbound to docking hatch 20. The rescue simulation requires Thunderbird 3 to enter a high parking orbit, parallel with the main docking ring. I will then suit up and transfer over by powered EVA, once F-36 is secure."

Right. Question was, would Carling fall for the ruse, or realize that John had pulled most of this out of his ass. Worse, could he reach Thunderbird 3 in time to prevent whatever devious assault their cloaked ride-along had in mind?

As F-36 _thunked_ home to her berth… while docking clamps rattled and air pumps rumbled to life... John unstrapped from his seat. Then the comm line opened once more.

"Lieutenant Tracy from Captain Carling. Proceed as outlined, keeping Thunderbird 3 two miles out at all times. Otherwise, by order of Colonel White, we open fire."

Sure. No problem.

"Copy that, Captain."

John detached the auxiliary keyboard to bring along with him, just in case he had to make changes on the fly. Next, calling Thunderbird 3, he said,

"Al, TinTin, I'm putting her up in parking orbit. Sit tight and wait for me. I'm on my way over. Lock down that cockpit. Under no circumstances are you to open the hatch, even to me." He had his own way aboard, known only to him, Brains and Max.

"Okey-doke," said his brother, sounding eager and anxious, together.

Lieutenant Hansen surprised him by leaning across to impulsively kiss the astronaut's cheek, then.

"Not sure what's actually going on here, John… but good luck. You are one h*ll of a pilot."

He should have come back with something better than,

"Thanks."

But Jeff Tracy's red-haired astronaut son had never been smooth (or even competent) around females. Computers and horses, yes. Women, not much at all.

Anyhow, he gave Hansen a nod and then vacated the flight deck. Swooped aft and got into a powered EVA suit so fast that he shredded records and skin. Next, John spaced himself out the closest emergency airlock, riding a blast of thundering wind from day-bright compartment to cold, black void. Two miles ahead gleamed the crimson needle of Thunderbird 3, attended by scores of deadly-fast GDF fighters.

Thinking, _"how the h*ll do I get myself into these things?"_ John shot away from the docked freighter; dodging traffic and maintenance drones; keeping his brother and sister two steps out of harm's way.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

_Haven, undergoing rapid and utter collapse-_

Sixteen years ago, his mother had placed a red-faced and squirming bundle in Virgil's thin arms, telling him,

"Say hello to your baby brother, Sweetie. Say hi to Gordon!"

…and, just like that, he'd become a big brother, responsible for keeping the squalling, leaky, alert little guy safe. For showing him the ropes. A big job, his mother had told him; same as Scott and John had lived up to, before him.

Virgil could still feel that weight on his lap, arms and heart. Maybe that's why he'd heard something in Gordon's voice that Scott missed. Why he'd signaled Lee before blasting around to the source of his brother's call.

By this time, the mountain-high city was twisting and shredding so badly that nothing was where it ought to have been. Upper compartments gaped wide and rotated sideways, spilling their contents like blood.

On top of all that, the howling wind was against him, and his exo-suit wasn't designed to go fast. Still, Virgil wrung out all the power it had left, not caring whether or not he'd be able to lift off again. Just had to get there. Had to reach Gordon.

Captain Taylor jetpacked over to join him, carrying that battered old laser rifle of his.

"Put her on autopilot, Sir?" Virgil enquired, glancing across at the hovering bulk of Thunderbird 2.

"Yep. Got 'er lined up with three peaks an' th' d*mn horizon. Jolly green 'll hold position as long as she's got a drop o' fuel in 'er tanks, Vic."

Inside his helmet, Virgil nodded stoutly.

"Yessir. Not sure what we're headed into, here, but…"

"Sounds like Godfrey's got hisself inta some kinda fix. Best ta go in there ready f'r purty near anythin'."

…which was why they weren't surprised by gunfire, loud shouts and that frozen, cyber-locked exo-suit. Thundering in from above, Virgil hit that slanted deck with a powerful _CRASH_; first crouching, then springing upright to the noise of whirring and clicking, overstressed servos. Saw Gordon down but still moving; surrounded by armed men in long, greenish robes. The air around them crackled with bullets, curses and keen frigid wind. Virgil barely noticed, locking his gaze on his wildly dodging brother.

Gordon was not fleeing from trouble, though. He was dashing right into it; hurling himself at one of those mad-eyed gunmen like he was armoured in solid neutronium instead of simple, brash courage and charm.

A bullet furrowed Virgil's helmet, cracking the faceplate. Another one _spanged_ off his exo-suit and buried itself in the far wall. Touching down seconds later, Lee fired 'Bessie' over everyone's heads, sending a flurry of crimson bolts _szzz-cracking_ across that big, sagging chamber.

Most of its occupants screamed and dropped to the deck, at that. Still on his feet, Gordon slammed into his target like a charging pro linebacker. Hit the guy dead center, sending a last wild shot blasting past Lee and into the open air.

"Awright, _settle down!"_ roared Captain Taylor. "Next one so much as looks at me sideways is gonna be wakin' up as a corpse!"

…which, y'know, didn't make any sense. But that was Lee, for you. Addled or joking; no one was certain quite which.

Gordon had started bleeding, so Virgil hit the pilot-release lever and dropped on out of his father's green exo-suit. The kid had struggled into a sitting position, after wrenching that pistol out of the older man's grip.

"You okay?" Virgil demanded, striding over with all he had in the way of a med-kit. (Read: not much.)

Gordon looked up at him, hazel eyes full of relief and shadowed by pain.

"I'll live," he promised, clamping one hand onto the opposite, bloodied shoulder. Then, "Thanks for coming after me, Virge."

Virgil helped the kid onto his feet, adding his own pressure and a folded gauze pad to help stanch the wound front and back.

"Anytime, Fish-stick. Now, let's get these people evac-ed and get the h*ll out of Dodge. I give this place ten minutes."

"Five," their uncle corrected, as the city's last major spar gave vent to a shuddering screech and then buckled. Their chamber dropped another twelve feet, splitting nearly in half as it did so.

Lee sprinted for Gordon's abandoned exo-suit, shouting,

"Vic, take Godfrey an' as many o' them folks as you c'n carry! I'll haul th' rest!"

"I'll help you carry them, Sir," added Scott, darting in through that badly ripped ceiling. The pink aircar was visible overhead, ready to take on whomever the Tracys could cram aboard.


	16. Chapter 16

Hi, there. Late and sort of short, but thank you kindly for reading. =)

**16**

_At about the same time, in a cloaked spacecraft firmly attached to Thunderbird 3-_

That International Rescue was bound to swiftly respond, he knew. That he intended not to let them find him, the Mechanic knew even better. He'd been able to tap into comm between the GDF and an inbound freighter containing one of the other Tracys; their GDF astronaut.

It would have been simple… the work of a moment… to convert the rocket's propulsion system to weaponry, and blast that space-walking halfblood to spreading vapor and glittering ash… But Kane had more important concerns. Somehow, he'd been freed of the Hood's grasp. Something or someone aboard Thunderbird 3 had disrupted the psion's chokehold, giving the Mechanic some time to think.

He did not intend to exchange slavery for arrest; meaning that he had to remain near the Tracys and avoid capture, while coming up with a way to mimic that unknown shield's effect. Now, booted feet magnetically locked to the deck of his spacecraft, Kane fought to control his own heavy breathing and rapid heartbeat. A fight would prove disastrous, when what he needed most was shelter, time and resources.

Could have summoned help (his family were able to reach him, even in space) but had too much pride for that. Instead, the massive cyborg extruded a skin-tight, transparent polymer spacesuit. Next, he began preparing distractions. If all worked according to plan, they'd never even know what had hit them.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_South America, near the heart of the quaking Andes-_

Those rumbling, rock-snapping aftershocks still happened, but were becoming less intense. There'd be no saving Haven, though. The city was a total loss; a pile of twisted girders and shattered ice on the saddle between the twin peaks. Her population… innocent civilians, apprehended criminals and freed prisoners… had been jammed in the noisy hold of Thunderbird 2, along with a certain pink aircar. Colonel Casey stepped up to manage the criminals, as she was the only one present with authority to make an arrest.

Virgil left her to it, performing hasty medical triage in the cargo-lifter's cramped medical centre. Up front, Lee had taken the pilot's seat; blasting away from Huascaran and that crumbling illegal city. As for Scott, the haunted pilot had gotten Dad's Bird airborne again… barely. She'd been damaged in one of the quakes, her landing skid twisted nearly double. Fortunately, she came down on her tail, when heading into her hangar. All Scott had to do was get her home. Simple, right?

Gordon would have helped out, but blood loss and shock were taking their toll. He felt cold but didn't say so. Just huddled on his cot, letting others get the attention they needed. Had weird, disjointed thoughts. Heard snatches of song and felt so terribly weak… but his brothers were busy, and everyone else needed more help than he did.

Thought he saw an angel, then. A beautiful blonde girl who reminded him of… of… something good and happy and warm, back when he'd still had parents. Party, or something.

She took his hand and spoke to him gently; asking questions, making jokes and praising his courage. Like a silvery thread, her voice wove in and out of his fading consciousness. Then Virgil appeared, looming up like a worried thundercloud.

"Hang in there, Kiddo," said his brother, setting up a rapid IV. "It's your night to do dishes."

Laughter hurt too much, but Gordon Tracy sank to sleep with half a smile on his battered face; hearing and feeling the sounds of a mighty airship headed for home. Thunderbird 2 banked westward, chasing the morning, flanked by a long silver rocket plane.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

_Elsewhere-_

On the modified bridge of his oil-tanker hideout, the Hood clenched both his fists till the tendons stood out like cables. There was sweat on his face and bald, shining head. Search as he might, he could not find nor re-seize the Mechanic's mind. Somehow, he'd lost his most valuable, powerful tool. Tanusha's doing, almost certainly. The girl was becoming stronger by the day… but her strength was raw and unchanneled.

Leaning forward in his throne-like seat, the Hood stared at a viewscreen filled with static and GDF comm chatter. Useless noise, most of it, excepting the bits that pertained to International Rescue.

"It seems that I must take a personal hand in this matter," he hissed, rising from his padded chair. Then, straightening the hem of his dark formal tunic, "Lackies, to me!" snapped the Hood. "Prepare my excursion craft! While their island base is yet unguarded…"

He would have continued, but there was little point in boasting or explaining his plans to the crowd of mind-blasted slaves who'd rushed to attend him. They'd have done whatever he told them to, even if that meant hurling themselves from a clifftop and into the raging sea. No matter. Such servants were easily replaced, and he had more important things to consider.

With Jeff Tracy gone and his lackwit sons scattered… with Tanusha under control and only that twig of an engineer and their useless old woman to deal with… Tracy Island would shortly be his.


	17. Chapter 17

Because, why not? Edited more.

**17**

_In high Earth orbit, en route to Thunderbird 3-_

Cross two miles of more or less empty space from docked freighter to highjacked IR rescue craft, double-time. Should have been easy, right? Away from Earth, all he had to do was point himself in the correct general direction and soar; lack of friction and minimal gravity would manage all the rest. Used a touch of his steering jets from time to time, to avoid obstacles. Otherwise, _"slam, bam, thank you, Ma'am"_ (as Scott liked to put it).

Except, as the resolute young astronaut shot through the void, with Earth shining blue as water beneath him… sun off to one side like a searing white eye… Pac Orbital, roughly the size of Staten Island, just overhead… Thunderbird 3 signaled another abrupt mass-change.

All at once, to high-alert comm flares and flashing red lights, she dropped over eighty-five tons. Not a fuel dump, either. No loose parts or hull damage. Something had come invisibly loose, leaving her once more unstable as sh*t.

John cursed a long, fluid blue streak, not caring who heard him. Got that portable keyboard out of his harness and back around front, wishing he had something less bulky to work with. Co-opted control of a few nearby maintenance drones by using a string of highly illegal code, then set them to run interference for him, as he remote controlled 3's engines and steering thrusters. That swarm of GDF fighters had edged even closer to the long, crimson rocket; their targeting lasers painting every inch of her hull, from nosecone to big, white **3** to flaring engines. Yeah. Good times.

All this was tense enough, with his posse of robotic bodyguards shifting freight and diverting traffic; the sun like a broiling curse, and his two youngest siblings trapped in a barely controlled spacecraft… but then something _appeared._

For one brief instant (about long enough for John to blink and grunt "Huh?") a sleek silver shuttle materialised between himself and Thunderbird 3. Then, it exploded.

No noises in space, but a sudden blossom of yellow-white nuclear fire caused his faceplate to darken completely and burnt out most of his spacesuit's sensor array. He should have died, at that point. Expected to. Only, his drone entourage blocked part of that hurtling debris-cloud with their own metal bodies. Some bits got through and struck him, anyhow, sending his suit into a frenzy of self-repair and shrieking internal alarms.

There followed a mostly blind 3D pinball game, in which his suit's "approaching mass" sensor and steering jets provided some heads-up and go; enabling John to bounce around avoiding the dagger-like shreds of a ruptured ship. Mostly.

Being temporarily blind didn't bother him much, since it reduced the equation to just a few potential John-smashers… and to h*ll with the keyboard, which was too clumsy, anyhow.

Shifting back to vox root-code, John seized control of Pac Orbital and raised her strongest shielding, flaring it out to cover nearby traffic and vulnerable crewmen. No damage there, but some of those zipping, junk-blasting fighters got hit, as did John.

Like heavy rain that resulted in gashed, pitted suiting and brief, sharp hisses of lost atmosphere. Noisy as sh*t, what with low power/ propellant alarms going off in his badly cracked helmet. Still alive, though, and determined to reach and save Thunderbird 3.

With his last dregs of propellant, his last spark of power, John directed himself at the mass-sink with the right configuration. Offered this brief, simple request as his steering jets sputtered, then silenced: _Can't die yet, please. They need help._

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Island Base, early morning, at the desk-_

Sally Tracy was a strong woman. As a farmer's wife and bush-pilot, she'd had to be. As a widow with six rowdy grandkids to raise and a now missing son, she'd been tested to her absolute limit. Still standing; bloodied and heart-broke, but not out of things, yet.

Couldn't afford to be, with tons of manure hitting the fan, and her family battling for their lives in a crumbling illegal city and out there in space. Erect and silver-haired, with yet a touch of her lost youthful beauty, Sal did what she had to. Together with Brains and Max, she worked the problems.

"Brains, we're gonna need ta boost Johnny's suit strength, an' make sure that 3's shielding covers _him,_ too."

The engineer nodded understanding, rubbing his hands together with brisk, nervous energy.

"Y- Yes, Mrs. Tracy. I am, as th- they say, on it." He and John had been friends since before the young man left Tracy Island as a newly minted cadet. In many ways, they still tended to think alike.

Turning to the augmented exploration probe at his side, Dr. Hackenbacker said,

"M- Max, I shall require f- full schematics of, ah… of Th- Thunderbirds 1 and 3. You m- must code and transmit repair instructions for S- Scott's forward landing gear, whilst I, ah… I d- deal with the s- situation in orbit." (Which had included muting John's most colourful outbursts, to spare Mrs. Tracy and the blushing GDF.)

Max replied with a river of beeps, clicks and trills. Morse code, mainly, with urgency, sarcasm and emphasis expressed through pitch and delivery speed. Brains heard it as speech, no translation required. Now, the engineer considered the robot's statement; removing and cleaning his glasses, for a little more think time. At last he nodded, saying,

"Th- Thunderbird 2 must, ah… must t- touch down in Perth to offload her p- passengers. Instruct S- Scott to proceed d- directly to, ah… to B- Base, Max. If inflight r- repairs prove unsuccessful, he must attempt a v- vertical landing upon the, ah… the l- leeward emergency pad. We sh- shall foam it well, first. P- Please so inform h- him."

Generally, Brains preferred an intermediary when speaking to Scott Tracy, who was very much the hot-shot fighter pilot and every inch an athletic alpha male. _He,_ on the other hand was… what? Gamma? Xi? Omega, possibly?

Useless speculation, so the engineer gave it up as a lost cause and went right back to work. Let the pilots fly and the warriors struggle. _His_ task was to remain well behind the front lines, providing crucial tech support. Or, so Jeff had always assured him.

As dawn flooded in through the big picture window, and a cloaked private shuttle streaked ever nearer, that skinny, bespectacled engineer, fierce-hearted old woman and sentient robot worked on; doing what they had to, to save lives and bring their people home safe.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

_Thunderbird 3, in the cockpit-_

Alarms had blared like a chorus of drunken banshees. Then something exploded, near enough to rattle like hail on their hull and slash past the view screen. Someone… John… got their shields up, but he was still out there, himself, unprotected.

Tanusha leaned halfway out of her seat to grab for Alan's shoulder.

"The grappling arms!" she snapped. "You've got to find John and pull him into our forcefield!"

Hard to object and nod at the same time, but somehow, Al managed; panic edging his voice like ice at the rim of a pond.

"I'm locked out of the system, Kay! I can't even flush the dang toilet!"

His sister took a deep, ragged breath. Closed her eyes, briefly, then said,

_"Think,_ Alan! He gave us the code to release flight control. All we've got to do is reverse it. Hurry!"

…because somewhere out there, an astronaut in a gashed, unpowered spacesuit was trying to reach them.


	18. Chapter 18

Thanks, Tikatu, Bow Echo and Thunderbird Shadow. Tough times, but we're getting through. As always, writing actually helps. Edited.

**18**

_In high Earth orbit, entering Thunderbird 3-_

Reaching out with power and code, the Mechanic hacked IR's rogue spaceship on a level so deep and subtle that no one aboard could guess at his presence. Necessary, because he had places to go, capture to avoid, shielding to spoof… and that added up to absolute secrecy.

Earlier, the cyborg had abandoned his shuttle and set it drifting toward that persistent d*mn itch of an oncoming astronaut. Then, he'd blown the thing up. Perfect distraction. Bonus points, if it also vaporized one of the Tracys. He couldn't sit still to make certain, though.

In that handful of instants after the explosion bloomed like an unfolding fiery rose… while Thunderbird 3's sensors were overloaded, those GDF fighters fleeing in panic and no one expecting a boarder… the Mechanic soared across space to the rocket's aft hatch.

It opened, because he willed it to; no access coding required. He could have done anything he wanted to, then. Except that his plans depended on lightning speed and distance from Earth.

See, Kane had worked out that his former master, the Hood, could not control him from this far away. Probably because the man was also trying to manage his niece (an abducted fellow Kyrano). Well then, far was exactly how the Mechanic would remain… until he managed to produce a program to mimic distance and shielding; made it part of his armour's defenses.

The outer hatch closed and sealed in perfect silence, blocking a vista of hurtling wreckage and darting GDF fighters. One of the rocket's long grappling arms had begun to detach and unfold, Kane noticed. No doubt fishing around for the corpse of their shredded astronaut.

He might have stopped it from doing so, but why the h*ll bother? Whatever kept IR too busy to notice his presence aboard their ship could only be counted as good.

The cyborg stood squarely at mid airlock, muscular tattooed arms folded across his broad chest, head lifted proudly. He was free and intended to stay that way, whatever the cost to his part-vermin hosts.

Sound returned, along with the hissing, pumped atmosphere. No alert to the cockpit, because Kane simply didn't allow it. Would not wait for complete equalisation, either, but triggered the inner hatch while still at half-atmosphere. Wind, disorder and racket made not one bit of difference to him. He was too preoccupied scanning that shielding effect. Too busy working out how to save his own freedom and mind.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Around the same time, outside of Thunderbird 3-_

Remaining suit atmosphere was now so deep in the red that John was seeing double; felt as drunk as he had the night after Academy graduation, with new silver bars shining fresh on his collar.

He drifted along in silence, except for his own harsh, rapid breathing; cracked face plate alternately fogging up and then clearing once more, making Thunderbird 3 appear and vanish, over and over again. No more steering jet power. No way to change course or accelerate. No way to get there in time. He was nearly unconscious when something gleaming and white seemed to reach for him, almost in range.

'_Grappling arm',_ he managed to think. It sparkled in soap-bubble blue, looking oddly wet. John didn't have much left in him by that point, but Tracys didn't give up. Not on the pitcher's mound, not at the Academy, and sure as h*ll not now.

Somehow, the astronaut twisted around. Stretched an arm, feeling every gram of his GDF spacesuit's inertia and mass. Just… barely… brushed that giant white claw. And that was all it took. Instantly, 3's soap-bubble forcefield flowed over him, too; snatching John up like a ball smacking into the catcher's mitt.

The rest was a blur of jarring motion, sudden sharp stop and bright ship's lighting. Then came a faint whine, hiss and pump-roar of flooding atmosphere, seeping in through the patches and cracks on his suit.

He got his own helmet off, some kind of way; gasping for air with lungs that burned like a drowning man's. Then Alan and TinTin were both in the airlock, leaving the effing cockpit unmanned. Tears balled up at their eyes as they launched themselves over, apparently determined to crush him unconscious.

Hosting the divine ancestor of all splitting headaches (like the day _after_ his graduation) latched onto by trembling, hysterical kids, the best he could manage was:

"Hey, guys."

Then added,

"Situation report?" in a scratchy, hoarse voice.

Alan turned loose of their floating, bulkhead-bouncing rugby scrum to dash at his own blue eyes and say,

"We re-took control of the Bird, John. It was all Kay's idea… that, and the grappling arm rescue."

She hadn't unlocked herself, yet: face still pressed to his neck and blue metal helmet ring. She was still shaking a little, too. John reached across to grasp his brother's hand, while giving the girl a brief hug.

"Her ideas, your skill… and that was a "pick-up", not rescue. There's a difference."

He ought to have dressed them down for stealing the Bird to come fetch him, not to mention leaving the cockpit unguarded, but, yeah… what the h*ll ever. They'd get it from Scott and Colonel Casey soon enough, in spades. Shrugging, the redhead went on, saying,

"Thanks for the assist. Need some water. Then I'll head forward to sort things out with Captain Carling and Pac Orbital."

TinTin hadn't said anything, yet. Just nodded, smearing his neck and cheek with her tears. She didn't have "I love you" in her vocabulary. That sort of thing went unspoken, at home. Instead of blurting her feelings, his sister raised her head and kissed John's cheek three times, whispering brokenly,

"I'm sorry."

Kids, y'know? He pressed her arm three times back in response, then set Kayo aside. Alan shoved a ration tube of apple sauce at him, next. Not water, but still very welcome.

John bit the cap off and drained the clear plastic tube at one gulp, easing his painful, dried throat. Then,

"Thanks. Got any aspirin?" while aligning his drift with the airlock.

Again, Alan the magic munchkin came through; this time, with a foil blister pack of _standard acetaminophen B, 2 tablets._ John tore open the package and swallowed both pills dry, then got his ass back to work. Only paused once heading forward, disturbed by the sudden impression that something was wrong. That someone was watching him. Might have been just strain and imagination… but his instinct said otherwise, plain as a GDF battle siren.

Looking around, John saw nothing at all but bobbing siblings and the long, narrow passageway. Started to speak aloud, then didn't, thinking: _Destroyed your own ship to make it onboard, huh? _

Right. That towering mountain of sh*t had just gotten higher. Question was, what to do now, besides defending Alan and Kayo, and keeping their hostile "guest" away from the Island? Not for the first time, John found himself wondering: how would Dad handle this nightmare?

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Thunderbird 1, streaking westward for Island Base-_

Scott had received a pair of encrypted messages just minutes apart, both from Max. The first contained repair codes which would allow Dad's rocket-plane to straighten and patch that damaged front landing skid. So far, so good. The second, well…

Lieutenant Scott Tracy scowled at his comm screen, causing those heavy dark eyebrows to knit themselves like a couple of tangled wool scarves.

…the second message had ordered him to proceed to the leeward emergency landing strip, on the other side of the Island, not to try touching down in hangar one. That… sort of hurt. They didn't think he could do it? Bring in Dad's Bird, damaged or not?

As the ocean and sky lightened from sunset to noon and then brilliant late morning, Scott flew and considered. He _could_ have called in to demand clarification, but injured pride stopped him from doing so. Rather than probe further, he clicked the mic twice by way of assent, and kept right on flying.

Needed a bathroom and something to eat. Someone to talk to who didn't hear "Tracy" and expect gem-hard, gleaming perfection.

With the comm switched off and reflected sunlight streaming in through the canopy… clouds and island chains sweeping past underneath like ellipses… Scott whispered,

"Need you back, Dad. Doing my best, here. We all are… but we're not you. Please, be alright. Send a message. Come home."

If he teared up some, alone in that noisy, vibrating cockpit, nobody knew it but him.

XXXXXXXXXXX

_Nearing the Island-_

As for the Hood, that spidery weaver of plots had found his way to a target with few shields or sensors, boasting only skeletal staff. Ripe, he was sure, for his imminent strike. Smiling to himself, the bald and elegant criminal guided a cloaked shuttle to the landing pad indicated by "Max".

"First, Thunderbird 1," he purred. "Then, with a valuable hostage attained, their base, itself."

It had been laughably simple to intercept and alter the robot's message to Thunderbird 1; ensuring that its callow pilot would land precisely when and where the Hood wanted him to. Then, once he'd smashed aside whatever flaccid defense Scott Tracy could muster, International Rescue would collapse like wet paper. Jeff Tracy was gone, and the rest would be helpless.

His plan couldn't fail. He wouldn't allow it to. Still smiling, the Hood banked his shuttle around Tracy Island and San Mateo; sneering reflexively at a cliffside house that he meant to smash into cinders.

"Enjoy these last moments, Vermin," gloated the Hood, cutting past towering volcano and steaming green jungle. "It all ends, today."


	19. Chapter 19

Hello, there. Thank you for reading and reviewing. Means a lot. Edits are very much needed, but so is sleep. Will make required adjustments, tomorrow. Edited more, because I seem to keep tinkering...

**19**

_Aboard Thunderbird 2, in the busy and echoing medical centre-_

Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward was perched at the edge of a hard metal fold-down seat, by the bed of an injured young rescuer. She'd recognised him at once, needless to say. Gordon Tracy was deservedly famous for his Olympic exploits and flashing, bright smile. Not handsome, precisely, but very charming and quite muscular for his age.

Not that he looked his best, at the moment. Currently, the wounded teen was pale from blood loss and shock; his vital signs stable, but low.

He, Penny and scores of others had been brought aboard Thunderbird 2, an extremely large and noisy green aircraft belonging to International Rescue. They'd taken off soon afterward, leaving the Andes far behind. At least, so she assumed. Back in the windowless medical hold, Penny could feel every bank, dip and rise, but saw only curving green walls. (Fortunately, she'd never been prone to motion sickness.)

Odd, Penny reflected, that some people faked dangerous accidents to nick a ride in Thunderbird 2 and here she'd got one scot-free, in the line of duty. _Her_ mission had ended successfully, with Haven's council apprehended by late-come GDF soldiers; their captives freed. (A minor adventure in itself, as the prison had been deep in the city, and Penny could not free her targets directly. Not without compomising her future effectiveness as a spy.) At any rate, young Reginald Mumford would soon return to his anxious family. Agent Blue, to debriefing and duty. Neither aware that _she'd_ been the one sent to retrieve them. For, even now, Penny maintained her cover.

Avoiding attention, the young noblewoman held fast to Gordon's hand, though his grip had grown slack and he no longer heard her soft chatter. The lovely blonde carried on speaking, regardless. The cheerful nonsense Penny spouted was effective camouflage, as it made her seem vapid, harmless and cute; the polar opposite of a WorldGov field agent.

Elsewhere, Virgil Tracy, Parker and a GDF colonel were preoccupied with sorting and treating their passengers. Interestingly, the tall, stern officer managed to surprise Penny by proving not such a martinet, after all.

There were children without parents aboard (Penelope refused to think _'orphans'_\- not yet) and Casey soon took them in hand. With surprising patience, she scanned their pictures; recording names, ages and histories like they were having a chat over tea and biscuits instead of fleeing the only home they'd ever known.

The task was made doubly challenging, because the children had no last names that they knew of, only their parents' occupation. They'd grown up in a small and close-knit hidden society, knowing everyone. All adults besides "mum and da" had been "Auntie herder" or "Uncle tailor". Finding next of kin would likely require genetic analysis, but the Colonel did her best.

One of the children… a small, dark-haired fellow named Trevor… had managed to sneak his puppy along. Ordered to leave pets and possessions behind, he'd hidden the animal under his blood-flecked shirt. In all the confusion, no one had noticed. At least, not till a hot golden stream appeared down his front, running straight into the boy's homemade shoes.

Casey scowled, at first, being every inch the rigid officer. Then, seeing the child's pleading look, his wide and frightened grey eyes… hearing the animal's whimpers… she relented.

"I think we can find a better place for your dog to do his business, young man," the officer remarked, unbending as far as was possible. Even managed a wan smile, asking, "What did you name it?"

After all, there were baby alpacas and at least one cat down in the pod. Definite precedence existed for animal passengers. Trevor returned her smile, pulling the squirming puppy out from under his sodden shirt.

"His name's Joey," the boy replied, holding the stowaway up for inspection. "He's a really good dog. He helped me get out when the lights was off, New Auntie. I could'n find the way, but Joey knew. He barked an' he pulled me."

Casey nodded.

"You're right," she told him. "That's a very clever dog you've got there. Well worth saving."

Just a wee spotted mutt, but incredibly precious to Trevor. Maybe all he had left in the world. Watching the puppy lick at his young master's face, Penny gave Gordon's hand an unconscious squeeze.

The gun-shot athlete mumbled and tossed a bit but did not wake up. Penelope eased her grip, looking wonderingly around herself at the crowded medical area, with all its blinking, chirping equipment. At Virgil Tracy, working so hard to heal, comfort and transport the people they'd rescued that day. At her own driver; his weapon and criminal instincts forgoten as he laboured along beside the GDF colonel and Virgil.

International Rescue were a bold and good-hearted lot; risking their lives, not in search of adventure, but to reach and save those whom no one else could. A feeling took hold of her ladyship, then. Perhaps raw nerves or her own stinging conscience, it told her that _here,_ rather than the Secret Service, was where she truly belonged… and that she, too, had need of a very brave, very good dog.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Thunderbird 3, somewhat earlier-_

Kane had kept himself well out of sight. Cautious, not frightened. He was a hunter. Predatory by upbringing and inclination. Not stupid or reckless, though.

What he needed was out of that rocket, well away from the Hood and the GDF. Call that step 3 of his constantly shifting plan. Being a powerful technomancer, Kane had been able to scan and roughly mimic the effect that was keeping his former captor out of his head. Couldn't speak for how well the blocking device would perform at close range, however, and didn't care to find out. Even an apex predator knew how to pick his fights. Sometimes it made more sense to den up, than attack.

The spoofed shield was just a psionic energy generator clipped to his goggles, but it worked. Had a few side effects, including slightly dulled senses and tingling in the extremities. Worth it.

Less acceptable was the fact that the Tracy astronaut had somehow survived. Despite an exploding shuttle and torn spacesuit, he'd managed to reach the safety of Thunderbird 3. The Hood's kidnapped niece had then hauled Tracy aboard, using the spaceship's long grappling arm.

Kane felt them approach the personal care chamber in which he'd concealed himself. Scanned them right through the bulkhead and hatch; two bounding juveniles and a drained, lagging adult.

The larger blur paused, once, seeming to catch itself on a bulkhead brace. Looked in the cyborg's direction, even.

"Pegged that I'm here, have you?" the Mechanic growled softly, getting a target lock on the hazy figure, outside. For a crackling-tense moment, neither man moved. Then Tracy kicked off the bulkhead once more, flowing like humanoid lighting. _Not_ at the hatch, but forward, after the young ones.

Kane grunted, surprised. Watching those three hazy figures dwindle toward the cockpit, the cyborg pressed one hand to the cold metal hatch. Felt circuitry branch and grow toward him. Sensed electrons altering their spin, machines shifting in place to acknowledge their lord. In seconds, he'd forged a link to the cockpit, opening viewscreen eyes in the nearest bulkhead, along with a high-voltage charge port. Plugged himself in with poorly concealed relief, and then began draining charge. His meat parts needed food, too, but that would just have to wait.

Any moment now, the Mechanic expected that half-blood 'hero' to open all lower hatches and vent the Bird's atmosphere, trying to flush him out. Wouldn't work, of course. Kane had magnetic boot soles. Could extrude his own spacesuit and recycle air, almost indefinitely. A passing meteor might kill him, or low charge, but not a d*mn Tracy.

"Try it," he rumbled, glaring through a pirated link as the vermin scuttled for their cockpit. "I survived the Hood and my proving. I earned a name. You lot are nothing, at all."


	20. Chapter 20

Heh! Managed to get another one out there, just like back in the long ago day. Edited.

**20**

_Thunderbird 1, flying westward over the ocean-_

One hard loss, one dark thought had pretty soon led to another, causing Scott to think about Dad, then Mom and his grandfather, Grant. Then, because he couldn't help it, his mind and heart turned back to Kayla

The strangest part was, she hadn't been all that good-looking. 8 out of 10, at the most. Just one more conquest in a river of quickies… or so he'd thought at the time. Only, Kayla Fielding had done what none of the others could manage. She'd found her way into his heart.

He still had pictures and 3D holo-vids but didn't look at them. Hadn't opened a one, since her death. Didn't need to. Snub-nosed, blue-eyed and merry; nearly as tall as Scott, himself; with short blonde hair and a "dancing raisin" tattoo (because once she'd been drunk and ridiculous). Full lips that always seemed ready to smile, and a streak of mischief as wide as the open sky. That was Lieutenant J-G Kayla Fielding, and Scott had stood no chance at all of breaking things off. Soon, hadn't wanted to.

Cocooned in a tangle of sheets, they'd whispered and laughed and made foolish plans. Night after stolen night, they'd talked about love and forever.

No, she didn't have oceans of money, and her dad wasn't famous. She was just Kayla. Just all he'd never known he always wanted… until the axe blade had fallen, cutting her out of his life.

Weird, though… he could still feel the place in his heart where she'd rested; still warm and indented, somehow. Like a bed after sleep. Didn't think anyone, ever, could fill that spot again. Not the same way. So… what did you do when it hurt to breathe, and there was no one left you could talk to?

Lost in his memories (or maybe just lost) Scott turned down his comm and flew onward; letting the thousand tasks of controlling an aircraft keep him from breaking in half. At least he had work to do. A family to lead, in Dad's absence. Wasn't much, but responsibility made the next step possible, and then the one after that. Flight, family and honour. All he had left that still mattered.

Speaking aloud once again, Scott repeated something his father had told him.

"Tracys don't quit. So long as there's breath and a heartbeat, we get up again and again, because _somebody_ has to."

Right. Nodding to all the ghosts crowding that cockpit, Scott made a promise.

"I'll do all I can," he said. "I get busy, and maybe it seems like I've forgotten you… but sometimes it hurts too much to remember, and I'm stuck being the strong one. I can't fall apart or slack off." Flew through a cloud, then, beading the canopy with quick-sliding drops. "Just, keep me in mind, and I hope… wherever you are… that it's good there. That you're happy."

Sunlight flooding the cockpit was warm on his skin as a kiss. Vibrating surfaces felt like a hug. Tightened seat straps reminded him of Granddad's big hand on his shoulder. Maybe just being poetic, or maybe… like Mom always told him… _We're a family, Scott, and no Tracy's ever alone._

Got himself together by the time Island Base hove into sight, but still wasn't ready to talk. Figured on landing out by the leeward emergency pad, and then taking a walk till somebody needed him.

Only, it didn't turn out that way.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Thunderbird 3, just two miles away from a nearly defenceless docking ring-_

John Tracy was crap… absolute rubbish… with people. He had a sixth sense about machinery and computers, however, that bordered on psychic. Now, John soared into the cockpit after Alan and TinTin, working things out.

A: They'd picked up a hostile intruder.

B: This "guest" had got to be kept away from the crowded orbital warehouse and Tracy Island.

C: John had family to protect, right here; a brother and sister who believed they were safe, just because he was with them.

Well… in tight situations, intel was key. _Right?_ Taking the pilot's seat, John pulled up the Bird's C-prompt and source code. Just a hunch, but no recent alarms had gone off. No record of any more mass change, at all. This had to mean that someone had got past the firewall and screwed around with Brains' delicate operating system.

Only John wasn't having any. Not today. Strapping in with one hand, the astronaut scrolled through thousands of lines of code with the other, while Alan settled himself in the copilot's chair. TinTin hovered close by, watching all that John did with brilliant green eyes. He hadn't seen either kid in over two years, and now was too busy to do more than grunt in response to their eager questions.

And, yeah… someone was in there, running a shadow-net deep under 3's basic programming. They'd gotten root and were now in control of the Bird.

_Sh*t. Now what?_

John had a couple of options but knew that he'd have to move fast. The clock was ticking, and Pac Orbital was far too close for safety. He had to put some distance between Thunderbird 3 and any potential target their guest had in mind.

When in doubt, he'd been taught to face the problem. So, John switched to numeric machine code and typed out a straightforward question.

_'who are you?'_

After a moment, a response appeared directly below his white text.

_*one who does not speak with vermin*_

Nice. At least he'd got the guy talking. Switching tactics, John followed with,

_'what do you want?'_

This time, the pause was longer. Like Max's language of beeps and trills, the reply wasn't spoken or spelt… but John could sense doubt and scorn in those shifting variables and flickering symbols.

*_release. an open exterior hatch, once this vessel makes atmosphere*_

Progress, of sorts. Whoever was in here, just wanted to leave. But then, why had he destroyed his own ship? Why sneak onto an IR spacecraft? Not to be paranoid, but something just didn't make sense.

While stringing their intruder along, John had been probing that foreign slave-system, looking for root. Hunting the means to free Thunderbird 3.

_'we are a rescue organization, not law enforcement. we help whoever needs us'_ the astronaut answered. _'I can only provide an open hatch if no one gets hurt as a consequence'_

Tricky going, because their unwanted guest was a d*mn fine coder. Just, not as good as John. Trying this and that as it came to him, the astronaut found an exploitable subroutine. Got in from behind and managed to access the Bird's sensors. Seconds later, he'd located 322 pounds of unexplained weight, down in the aft head, near where he'd first felt somebody's presence.

_"Got you,"_ thought John, reclaiming systems as fast as he could.

Their stowaway had to have figured out what he was doing. But, rather than wrest back control of the Bird, the intruder said,

_*you cannot prevent me from taking whatever I want, tracy. all you will gain is a slower death*_

Granted… unless John was able to track the source of that alien code and shut it down at the mains. He'd begun to suspect that his sparring partner was the Mechanic, but he had no way of proving it. Too much happening at once.

See, he'd also been talking with Captain Carling; assuring the GDF pilot that Thunderbird 3's unannounced test flight had been a complete success. That there was no cause at all for alarm. (Except, y'know, Dad's maybe-killer, preparing to lash out again. Anger came surging back, threatening self-control.)

No doubt, Carling would give his right testicle for a shot at the Mechanic. Wouldn't be able to handle that powerful, bloodthirsty cyborg, though. Not if Dad couldn't do it. Worse, with the GDF out of the way and Thunderbird 3 in his possession, the Mechanic could reach Tracy Island, Mars and the Moon. Shove asteroids into planet-smashing orbits, or something.

On the other hand, giving the murderous cyborg a ride back to Earth meant setting him free to wreak havoc, later. Not a good trade, since anyone the Mechanic killed after that would have lost their lives because John M. Tracy screwed up.

Somebody shook his right shoulder, then.

"John? I said, _are you okay?"_

Kayo ripped his attention away from the screen, her eyes gone all at once narrow and hard.

Good question. The astronaut met her gaze for an instant, and then looked away. Their father would have said that the mission and public safety came first, no matter the cost. But, knowing Dad, he'd also have found a way to save kids and Pac Orbital, both.

"I'm fine," John lied, because his sister and brother were waiting. "Just thinking."

…with time running out to come up with a workable plan.


	21. Chapter 21

Hi, there. Thank you, as always, for reading. Lord willing and the creek don't rise, my next post will arrive from Yokosuka, Japan. Going to visit my daughter. :') Edits accomplished.

**21**

_Amid the branching pathways of three very tense situations-_

The Island's barren leeward side had been kitted out as a "coming in hot" emergency landing strip. That way, with an extinct volcano between Island Base and any half-controlled incoming Birds, damage would be kept to the absolute minimum. Scott Tracy wasn't concerned about his approach, though. It was landing that might be a problem.

Brains' uploaded repair code had helped the maintenance bots to straighten that crumpled front skid, but it was still very weak, and he knew it; liable to fail at any one of those recent bend-points. Faced with that knowledge, Scott had a choice to make. Burn up fuel like his tanks had no bottom, coming in gentle, slow and horizontal… or try for a vertical, tail fin descent.

Thing was, sometimes one idea seemed better, sometimes the other. Using up crap-tons of rocket fuel meant none left for a second attempt if, say, a sudden updraft slammed him off course.

On the other hand, without the hangar's guidance system locked in, a tail-first approach required iron nerves and crazy precision. He could do it… had done, in sim… but maybe not when physically spent and emotionally drained. It had been one h*ll of a day, and Scott was still second-guessing himself; still battling the shakes over how close they'd come to losing Gordon, back in Peru.

Thunderbird 1 howled westward, still off comm, because Scott needed think-time . Long before Tracy Island crested the horizon, her towering cap of white clouds and wheeling seabirds, the lightening ocean and altered wave-patterns betrayed her presence. Even off auto-guidance, he'd have known he was almost home.

Then he spotted the island, itself; green and black and trailing white clouds like a veil. Almost unconsciously, the pilot began to relax; thinking of half-decent food and hot showers. Then, between one breath and the next, Scott's view of glimmering ocean and golden sunshine disappeared utterly. All at once, he was blind; seeing nothing but a pair of slitted yellow-green eyes. His head seemed to smash like a melon dropped from a third-story window, as someone else began working his limbs and his voice like a puppet.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Thunderbird 2, speeding for Perth, Australia-_

International Rescue had never been meant to serve as a law enforcement agency. In those early days, their restraint systems were limited to sealed hatches, knotted bungie cords and very tight seat straps. Not too tough for a determined group of prisoners to squirm their way out of. First, Haven's director pulled free of his bonds, losing some skin in the process. Then, one at a time, he released the rest of the Council, helping them to stand on that shifting metal deck.

They'd been stuffed into a forward auxiliary storage space, surrounded by a pirate's hoard of construction equipment and exo-suits. Now, pitching his reedy voice just loudly enough to be heard over engine noise and vibration, the Director spoke to his six companions.

"Haven lives on, so long as her council survives. What we accomplished in the mountains of Peru may be done again, better. All we have to do is seize this vessel from her crew while they expect no trouble. Then, gentlemen, we shall reclaim our remaining people and create a new home."

He stood erect, grey head lifted high on his scrawny neck, rubbing the feeling back into his hands and arms. The others closed into a half-circle facing their leader; mimicking their arrangement at Council.

"No prisoners," said his right-hand man, angrily straightening crumpled green robes. "Those without pure intent must die, to cleanse the path for the right-thinking faithful."

There were nods and mutters of assent, as the rest worked to smooth away signs of degrading capture and binding. Smiling coldly, the Director said,

"Our pilot survives long enough to ferry us to Site B. The rest die just as soon as their throats may be cut. No quarter, and no direct confrontation, gentlemen. There must be no alarms and no warning, until we have opened the cockpit."

The Council's youngest member, a fierce-eyed man with a bit of brown still left in his hair, held a hand up for attention, saying,

"A hostage, perhaps, to properly motivate our pilot? I have just the right one in mind."

This notion stirred up some heated debate, ending at last in a vote. Then, with their plans made and repurposed weapons in hand, Haven's council left the storage compartment, bent upon freedom and savage revenge.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Space, in parking orbit near a large and slow-turning warehouse-_

Alarms and lights started up and cut off with machine-gun speed. Systems all over the spaceship flared and then silenced, as John Tracy fought to wrest Thunderbird 3 away from an unseen intruder. On the bright side, he'd got a sneaky and sudden idea.

Might not work, but he'd have gone down trying _something,_ even if the situation went utterly pear-shaped. Glancing across the cockpit at his busy kid brother, John grunted,

"Sorry, Al."

Alan's blond eyebrows climbed his pale forehead. Frowning slightly, he demanded,

"Sorry for what?"

"Wrecking your Christmas present."

…which would have been perfect, had John not needed a speedy and left-handed weapon. See, if it _was_ the Mechanic onboard, then his interface with Thunderbird 3 was direct and personal. In a very real sense, the cyborg had connected his mind to the spaceship, and that made him vulnerable… But only to something completely unexpected, and maybe for not very long.

Right about the time that Al blurted, "Huh?" and Kayo started firing questions, John whipped out and uploaded the best d*mn game he'd ever coded: _Toxic Annihilation._ Took about fifteen seconds to complete the file transfer and then click "open"; actions he disguised by setting up firewalls and launching some desperate-seeming countermeasures.

Distraction was key, until that immersive, semi-autonomous game code had a chance to bridge the gap between Thunderbird 3 and the arrogant bastard who'd gone in and taken her over. Alan would have needed full VR sensory gear and a haptic suit to receive the total experience, but the Mechanic had all that built in. He was a cyborg, making him subject to all the ills that flesh-bonded-with-metal is heir to. (Like a completely immersive, coded reality.)

John had designed the game to sneak in; to take you believably from where you were now, to utter, apocalyptic disaster. Better yet, he could view the player's responses, and edit; leading that unwelcome guest the h*ll off their Bird and into GDF custody. If only it worked. If only transfer was seamless enough that the Mechanic didn't guess what was happening.

Yeah. Needing to make it look good, John typed out,

_'for the safety of all aboard, do not disturb the locked container in med-center storage.'_

Then, all he could do was to wait.


	22. Chapter 22

Merry Christmas, from Japan!

**22**

_Just over Tracy Island, coming in hot and wildly unstable-_

He was blind and struggling; able to see nothing but a pair of seething, yellow-green eyes; barely able to sense the Bird's controls in his tightly clenched fists. Someone had seized hold of his mind. Was forcing Scott Tracy out of his own head, planning to maybe attack his home and his family.

**NO****.**

With less than a second to act, Scott hauled the Bird's lever-grips, _hard._ Alarms blared, sudden and harsh as a whip-crack, but Scott wouldn't let go. The rocket-plane veered sharply downward, hurling its pilot against his seat straps. Fire and acid ate at the edge of his consciousness, making his head seem to shatter, exploding with pain.

Utterly blinded, unable to think, he did not cease his power dive. If anything, the pilot banked harder. Couldn't see where he was headed… ocean or mountainside… but that didn't matter. He would not let himself be used as a weapon. Refused to harm the innocent people, below.

Autopilot tried to take over. Scott tore the system out of its housing, by feel. Brains overrode comm silence, shouting questions, but Scott couldn't answer him. Not without giving his attacker the quarter inch needed to win this terrible fight. Could make no sound at all, before a shock like nothing he'd ever felt… explosive concussion, pain, noise and wrath… bludgeoned him down into absolute blackness and silence.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

_Over the southern Pacific, approaching Australia-_

The scheming Director led his council through a tight metal passageway, using colourful bulkhead maps to plan their route. He had two goals in mind. First, take a valuable hostage. Second, use that mewling leverage to seize control of the aircraft and then force it to land at Site B, up in the treacherous Adirondack Mountains. Only, he hadn't reckoned on the rumbling cargo-lifter's bulkhead security cameras.

Scuttling along that ringing steel corridor like murderous roaches, the council tripped a surveillance cam. The small, hidden lens issued no sound or motion that might warn the band of escaped prisoners they'd been spotted. Instead, it routed a signal forward, alerting the busy pilot.

With Virgil and Colonel Casey aft and below, attending to injured disaster victims, Captain Taylor was alone in that big, two-man cockpit. There was plenty to do, but spying a blinking alert, Lee didn't ignore it.

Freed a gloved hand from the steering yoke to click '_details'_. Saw part of the viewscreen in front of him shift to the image of seven angry, armed men sneaking along a maintenance passage.

Lee cocked an eyebrow, gauging their progress through Thunderbird 2 by camera number and transmitted bulkhead map.

"Mmph!" he grunted. "Looks like we got us a breakout."

He could not desert his post, nor ask Vic and Sarge, down below, to abandon their patients. On the other hand, looked at the right way, the whole d*mn ship was a weapon, and Taylor had all he needed to handle the situation, right there in front of him.

Sparing an instant to stroke down his big, bushy moustache, Captain Taylor sent a message to Vic and their GDF ride-along: _Lock down for emergency maneuvers,_ he told them. Next, Lee slapped an inertia-dampening field on the pod and medical centre, canceling relative motion… for friendlies.

Then, passengers seen to, Taylor started to fly. His way; full out, red-lined, balls-to-the-wall. Flipping on edge, diving, swooping, climbing and soaring in barrel rolls and high, zero-G curves. Put Thunderbird 2 through her paces like a rodeo horse, making her engines howl and her fuselage scream. Near knocked _himself_ out, a time or two… but not quite.

As for those scuttling prisoners, anything not fastened down or caught in a specialized forcefield was hurled like a tennis ball from one bulkhead, deck and overhead to the other. Slammed from launch Gees to sudden weightlessness in seconds, over and over.

Shrieking, cursing and begging for help, they soon dropped their weapons, huddling up into tight, fetal curls. Taylor hummed tunelessly, chewing spearmint gum as sea and sky switched places in his viewscreen time and again.

"Nice afternoon f'r some barnstorm flyin'," he remarked to himself, as a final unconscious conspirator flopped to the deck. "Inverse corkscrew's m' favorite, but there's them as swears by th' Immelmann loop or the Tracy hook. Might hafta try 'em all over again, just ta be fair an' impartial."

Australia was just over the horizon, putting him well into local radar. A deeply puzzled Flight Control Officer called up, demanding explanations.

"Thunderbird 2, this is Perth Regional Air Space. What is your status?" he asked tensely. "Highly erratic flight pattern detected. Are you declaring emergency?"

Grinning broadly, Captain Taylor straightened the Bird out and throttled back.

"Just a little shake-down flight, Control," he responded. "Thought I had sumthin' loose in the rear." The FCO might have retained some suspicions, but Taylor had things to do. Switching channels, he dropped the Bird's internal inertia dampers and sent an all-clear.

"Sir? Everything okay, up there?" demanded his middle-born nephew. "What's going on?"

Lee shrugged as well as the seat straps would let him.

"Nuthin' much, Vic. Just an unauthorized tour group I was aimin' ta redirect. Had a little "come ta Jesus" moment with 'em, is all… and we got a serious clean-up on aisle six, if ya wanna send in th' maintenance drones."

His nephew's bluntly handsome face shot through concern, surprise and then humour almost too quickly to catch. Next,

"Understood, Sir. I'm on it," he said, adding, "The patients are pretty much stabilised, so…"

"Godfrey alright?" Lee cut in, managing to sound almost casual.

"Yessir," Vic nodded. "He'll be okay, once we get him to Base. Blood loss, shock and a chipped left clavicle, is all."

Lee resumed normal breathing.

"Good ta hear," he admitted, "seein' as all we've got's th' one diver. I mean, I might could do it in a pinch, but Alphy's been up there alone f'r awhile, an' meteorite damage adds up purty quick. 'Bout time I headed on home f'r a spell."

Already moving, Virgil Tracy smiled at the image on his wrist comm.

"No problem, Sir. We've got things under control. Do what you have to, upstairs."

Sounded good. Question was, with no Dad and no Lee, could International Rescue handle future missions? Would the GDF even give them a chance to try? Could five young men, their sister and grandmother keep right on saving the world?

Virgil didn't have any answers, just plenty of hope. At least, until twin alerts arrived from Island Base and Thunderbird 3, stirring the pot all over again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Space, at nearly the same time, just above a gleaming and spinning orbital docking rig-_

-for the safety of everyone present, do not open the storage container in medical-

…or something to that effect. An obvious diversionary tactic about as subtle as _"Arggghhh! What's that behind you?!"_

Kane paid no attention, but one of the juveniles… the Hood's stolen niece… flitted into the ship's crew-repair station. Then, d*mned if she didn't cycle open a locker and unseal the box; so swiftly that the Mechanic couldn't shift any nanites to stop her.

He witnessed it all on his bulkhead monitor, because every sensor and lens on the IR spaceship now reported to him. Got a crawl full of data, at the same time as that box lid unlatched and came up.

There was crap, there was sh*t and there was effing _disaster._ This topped all three and planted a flag. Being a cyborg, Kane could easily read text and watch events at the same time.

What developed was this:

_2-14-61, Martian scout team collapsed ceiling of undetected lave tube and plunged within, encountering alien artefact. When brought to the base and unsealed, the artefact was seen to release viral and cybernetic pathogens._

(Meanwhile, the curious girl craned her head to see what was inside of that heavily plated neutronium box. Reached in and drew out some species of force-shielded vial. That would have been defense enough, except that… as an ersatz Tracy… she had very high clearance.)

The crawl proceeded:

_Biologicals shortly became infected such that their DNA was rendered unstable, converting them into a 'soldier' or 'carrier' of the vanished alien race. Mechanicals were ruthlessly hacked, causing them to be warped in shape and purpose._

(Heart beginning to pound, the Mechanic took action. His nanites swept through the stricken vessel like fire through paper but did not get there in time to prevent the girl from keying open that vial. A dusty powder rose up from its top; black and faintly sparkling. The dark-haired girl made a face, reacting in shock and disgust as if at a very strong smell. Then, her flesh seemed to bubble and flow; first turning lumpy, then jerky and frenzied. Next, as if something within was clambering out, her blackened skin tore like a too-small, slimy cocoon. Remade in seconds, Tanusha Kyrano slashed her way out of her former body, revealing a thing of blades, pincers and warty, hardening armour. The creature lifted its head and bellowed a rasping cry, while all around it, machines began to alter and shift conformation.)

The last bit he could read, before camera feed shut down was:

_Their primary directive appears to be the seizure and conversion of all native life forms, incorporating their genome. Machines begin to generate frigid ammonia gas, poisoning the atmosphere. If humanity is to survive, you must deliver this sample intact to a GDF lab complex for analysis._

…and then the crawl ceased, as a powerful, rending concussion shook the near bulkhead. The Hood's converted niece was apparently smashing her way out of their crew-repair station.

Kane was not a game player or watcher of Tri-vids. He had little imagination. Could, however, recognise an apparently genuine threat.

"TRACY!" he bellowed, causing the bulkheads to thicken and warp, entombing what slashed and fought for release from the crew-repair station. "Your vessel has been compromised!"

No reason on Earth he should care about _them…_ only, his own folk were in danger now, too. Any infection that struck both organic and mechanical life would tear through a cyborg like a blade through calm water. Already, Kane's sensors detected seeping ammonia gas and plummeting temperatures. He had to keep this doomed plague ship off-world, no matter the cost to himself or the Tracys. _That's_ why he did it.


	23. Chapter 23

Thank you. Edited.

**23**

_Tracy Island, just offshore-_

Maybe it was the shock of the crash, itself… brief, ragged unconsciousness, or a wildly inflating Pilot Survival System… but _something_ shoved his attacker out of Scott's head. Those, slitted, yellow-green eyes vanished abruptly, replaced by a rolling, tumbling sensation; by the rumble and crash of titanic surf. Of light, sometimes tropical-bright, sometimes filtered and wavery-green. For a few confused seconds, Scott was unable to act; just watching as massive chunks of Thunderbird 1 plunged past into watery half-light, to strike coral and sand with a loud, grinding _**CRUNCH.**_

Glowing engines flared nova-star bright then extinguished, as their maintenance bots first hunkered down to the hull like barnacles, then rushed to contain any leaks. Thinking, _'Sorry, Dad,'_ Scott watched the shards of Jeff Tracy's Bird plummet past in a storm of bubbles and billowing fuel.

The Pilot Survival System would keep him safe till the rip current… always fierce, at this end of the Island… brought him round to shore. But that wouldn't help his family, back at Base with a psionic madman on the loose. Scott had just a few minutes to strategize, before his inflated survival pod ground to a halt against black, jagged lava.

There were access and maintenance tunnels riddling the extinct volcano; a tangled warren of them. Cleverly hidden from outside, accessible only by palm-print and retinal scan, the tunnels would let him within; giving Scott access to ersatz weapons and tech, unless… that wasn't his own thought, at all, but somebody else's. Someone still trying to break in and take over.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Aboard Thunderbird 2, preparing to touch down in Perth, Australia-_

Virgil Tracy had ordered a crew of maintenance bots to deal with the mess in accessway 20. Might've gone up there, himself, except that he got a flurry of sudden calls, all of them priority one.

The first, from Island Base, stated that Scott had crashed Thunderbird 1 just offshore. Telemetry indicated that his Pilot Survival System had inflated, while suit biometrics pegged him as still alive and in mostly one piece.

The second alert came from Thunderbird 3, which had somehow been launched with Alan and Kayo aboard, to… go pick up John? More than that (and not surprisingly) the kids had run into trouble. Explosions, GDF threats and 'Trojan Horse', which meant _hostile intruder._

On top of all that, Gordon was still unconscious, having been shot by the same troop of bitter old men who'd just staged a jailbreak on Thunderbird 2.

Well, h*ll… Virgil stood perfectly still in the midst of that bustling Med Centre, thinking hard. Captain Taylor would have gotten the same reports. Not Colonel Casey, though. Not yet. She was still busy sorting out orphaned refugee kids.

Virgil glanced across at the big, husky woman, watching her take scans and conduct lightning interviews, a drowsing puppy curled up on her lap. With the inertia-dampeners on, she hadn't noticed Thunderbird 2's wild aerobatics. Wasn't aware, yet, how badly their situation was plunging due south.

The tall, dark-haired young man could have asked for her help; for a few cadres of GDF troopers to be dispatched to commercial orbit, to Perth and to Island Base, itself. Only… that would as good as admit that International Rescue couldn't muddle along without Jeff Tracy.

Virgil shook his head, handsome face settling into fiercely determined lines. '_No help from outside',_ he decided, pressing the button to contact Lee. _'Not till there's no other choice.'_

…Because, once WorldGov got in, they'd take right over and never let go.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Commercial space, near Pac Orbital-_

The Mechanic wouldn't be fooled for very long, and John knew it. Had to act fast. Right now, the cyborg was trapped in an electronically induced, highly immersive nightmare, his body locked up as if dreaming. His half-human mind was enmeshed in Alan's Christmas present; a game scenario that had hacked the Mechanic's cybernetics and nervous system.

'_A few minutes at most',_ John figured, already moving. As the game-master, he could see the Mechanic's choices; see him fighting to seal off and neutralize a deeply infected TinTin. The cyborg thought he was striding through Thunderbird 3, altering bulkheads and forging new passageways; battling an alien computer virus that was turning the crimson rocket into a toxic plague ship.

He could have chosen the escape option, just getting the h*ll out of Dodge through an airlock. Instead, surprisingly, the cyborg fought back, alerting the game-Tracys that they'd been invaded. Kind of admirable, that.

Snapping,

"Stay here and keep us away from Carling and Pac Orbital. Tell them a story, sing them a lullaby. Whatever it takes."

…John unstrapped from his seat and shot through the air, leaving Alan and Kay in the cockpit. Tried to, anyhow. His sister just wouldn't stay put, following him out to the rocket's main accessway.

"John, what's going on?!" she demanded, all at once big-eyed and tense

Right. There was no time to yell or get angry. The Mechanic wouldn't stay under for long.

"We have an unwelcome guest," John explained. "You want to help out, go get a med-kit and meet me down in the aft head. _Hurry."_

To her credit, his sister wasted no time at all on dumb questions. She only nodded, sending her ponytail fanning up and around her head like the tail of a raven-dyed peacock. Then, the girl kissed his cheek and shot off down-corridor.

As for John Tracy, well… weapons would do no good at all against the Mechanic, who could lock up their systems and prevent them from firing. Spacing the cyborg wouldn't work, either, as he could survive and maneuver quite handily outside of a ship. Drugs might sedate his biological components, but not the mechanical rest of him, so that was another no-go.

Fortunately, John's decision tree had many branches and hundreds of shimmering logic gates, letting his secret plans make plans of their own. Adapting on the fly, he soared through that narrow passage with bulkhead kicks and swift grab-holds, making his way to the distant aft head.

Got there in less than a minute, to find that the place had been converted to a sort of comm centre, with a cluster of organic looking viewscreens where the mirror and wash tap had been. Their former water closet had expanded wildly, making room for a massive, armoured figure standing braced at dead centre, magnetic boot soles locked to the deck. A cable connected him to a power outlet, feeding that tall, muscular cyborg as he dreamt of apocalyptic disaster.

Kayo zipped in just after John, med-kit in hand and already open. She would have sailed through the hatch and hurtled right into the hypnotized Mechanic, had John not reached out to snag her.

"No, you don't," he grunted, slinging his sister around to collide with himself instead of the bulkhead. _"Unf…_ he's busy right now, and we need him to stay that way. No distractions."

Kayo nodded, fumbling through the med-kit for a can of trank-spray. Her wide green eyes never left the immobile, tattooed giant before them. Face mostly concealed by goggles and breath mask, head partly shaven, amber eyes glaring at nothing, the cyborg radiated menace like most people sweat. Even trapped in VR, he looked deadly.

John ignored the proffered trank-spray, taking the med-kit from Kayo. There was a false bottom, see, with a hidden compartment below. Inside of that lay a bit of illegal, last-ditch medical tech called a stasis patch. Call it plan D-27.

Not giving himself time to think, much less calculate unhappy odds, the tall, red-haired astronaut pried open that false bottom and fished out the only thing that might work. Next, John kicked off the bulkhead, crossing a few feet of space to their now-twitching stowaway.

_(In game, the Mechanic had risked doubling back to take biological samples from alien-soldier Kayo; intending to find the Tracy's genius and make him develop a cure. Kept the freezing ammonia out of the cockpit, where game-John and Alan were working to save their ship.)_

Lightning swift, John peeled the patch from its backing, eyes never leaving the straining Mechanic. Not breathing, fighting hard to make no sound at all, John slapped the stasis patch onto that hulking, distracted machine-man, and then switched it on.


	24. Chapter 24

Hi there, and many thanks for reading and reviewing. Obviously, I do not own these guys. I just love them a lot. Edited.

**24**

_GDF Airbase Perth, near Two Rocks-_

Thunderbird 2 glided in like a giant green feather, using impellers most of the way. (Not to show off, but to silence most of her volcanic engine noise. No sense alarming the populace.) This gentle approach made for a smooth, easy landing and very short taxi.

The cargo-lifter touched down, bounced once, then rolled on in, stopping just short of the ambulance crew and waiting security team. Then, while Lee Taylor handled a mountain of post-flight regulations, Virgil and Colonel Casey went to work. Together, they triggered lift on the main aircraft; sending it rumbling skyward and freeing the pod to thump wide open.

Late afternoon sunshine and brisk sea air flooded the big metal cavern, as people stood up, warily clutching at those they loved best. A gangly, enthusiastic blond medical officer bounded up the ramp almost before it touched ground, already talking a mile a minute. Virgil picked up the thread of his discourse in mid-sentence.

"…basic clearance and triage, then run 'em through customs, just in case. Building a pen for the livestock, too, and base vet's already poised to start scanning for parasites. Afternoon, Ma'am, Sir," (as he saluted first Casey, then Virgil) "Welcome to Airbase Perth! Captain Rand, at your service!" And so forth.

The GDF crew pitched in immediately, spreading out through the pod and medical centre to place bright-coloured triage tags and pack people out. The medical officer stayed with Virgil and Casey, only pausing in his torrent of speech when he spotted Haven's bound-up and much-battered council.

"Good _night!_ What happened to _this_ lot?" he gasped.

Even the colonel looked startled, as that band of scheming old men had not been in such awful shape when she'd helped to restrain them.

Explained Virgil, quite calmly,

"They ignored the "fasten seatbelt" sign, and then we experienced some turbulence." _To put it mildly. _"These are the leaders of Haven. They kept the place secret for years, by eliminating unwanted visitors. Not sure if they have any WorldGov ID, but our jurisdiction ends here. They're all yours, guys."

Colonel Casey gave the young man a long and measuring stare, as though probing for lies. But Virgil's face was as open and mild as a baby's; his warm brown eyes the picture of trustworthy innocence.

"We'll take them from here, Virgil," she told him, at last, adding, "Thank you for letting me ride along. It was quite… instructive. I'll have plenty to tell the World Council, most of it good."

Virgil did not resume breathing normally until Casey gave him a final, firm handshake and then stalked off to snap orders. His gut had just unclenched, when somebody touched his right arm above the elbow.

"I beg your pardon… Virgil Tracy, isn't it?" chimed a sweet, lilting voice, attached to the beautiful female he'd spotted earlier, helping Gordon. Blonde, blue-eyed and slender, up close she had one of those faces that launched ships, stopped traffic and broke the d*mn internet.

"I am Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward. Our fathers were quite well acquainted, and your family came to stay with mine over Unity hols once, many years ago."

Virgil frowned slightly, wringing his brain for any faint hint of a memory. Giant playground of a house, maybe? Sparkling lights and shining, robotic servants? Mountains of tasty food?

"I'm sorry, Miss. Scott or John would remember it better. They're older than me… but I'm happy to meet you _now._ How, um… how can I help you?"

Like, _anything_. Back-rub, walk on the beach, drinks and dancing…

Penny smiled up at him, looking like Botticelli's immortal painting of Venus. (With more clothes and less hair.)

"You were terribly charming and frightfully loud. An utter rascal who slid down all of the balustrades on his bum, and then ate insatiably…" Penelope laughed. "But I must own that you've changed a great deal in the interim. As to my purpose in presenting myself in this manner… I should like to offer my condolences upon the loss of your father, and…"

"He isn't dead," Virgil growled, looking away at the hurrying people and rapidly emptying pod. "No one's found a body, _or_ the Zero-X."

Penny hesitated briefly, then gave him a warm, smiling nod.

"Of course, Virgil. Men like the Colonel do not go down easily. Doubtless, your father has washed up on an island, someplace, and is even now hard at work constructing a raft."

She got it. She understood. Didn't argue or "let him down gently". Virgil Tracy let himself relax and make eye contact once more.

"We'll find him," he assured her. "Dad 'll get out a signal somehow, and we'll go pick him up." He had to believe that. They all did.

Penelope smiled again, hand on his arm pressing warmly.

"If I may be so bold, Virgil… has International Rescue any need of assistance? Of… shall we say… a _clandestine_ nature?"

It was an unfair question. Enthralled as he was by her touch, voice and beauty, Virgil would have said yes to any request, at all… but it worked. That was how Her Ladyship got her well-heeled foot in the door with IR. How she came to encounter the man she very much loved.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Tracy Island, upon the surf-lashed rocks of the leeward shore-_

He had allowed shock and alarm to drive him from the mind of Scott Tracy, when that scheming worm crashed Thunderbird 1. A foolish mistake, but easily reparable. Having emerged from his personal shuttle, the Hood now picked his way down to the shore, where Tracy's pilot survival bubble rose and fell with the sea, scraping rock.

Being curious about death, the Hood had many times placed himself in the minds of his victims whilst having them killed. Wanted to know what it felt like, you see. Time after time, whatever the method of ending life, their final darkness had always expelled him. He could not see what came after; if, indeed, anything did.

All of this should have made him proof against Tracy's suicidal crash-dive, but he'd "jumped the gun", as it were. Leaving the pilot's mind before time. Giving his victim a last, brief taste of freedom.

Now, the Hood tried to regain his grip on Scott Tracy, but the cur was fighting him. Worse, the psion could not bring his full force to bear; not with a cliffside trail to manage in gusting wind, hissing spray and slanting, purple-dark shadows.

"It is pointless to resist me," he taunted, edging closer to hammering waves and tall, craggy boulders. Closer to the son of his beaten enemy. "There is no place to hide yourself. No crevice in which to take shelter from one who is able to read your very thoughts."

The Hood hadn't dressed for an outdoor excursion. Such things were normally left to his mind-wiped servitors. Wearing dress shoes and an impeccably tailored suit, he refused to hurry. No need, when his quarry's mind glowed like a pain- and shock-tinged bonfire.

He looked on, amused, as the injured mongrel clambered out of that life-saving bubble and onto a spire of rock.

"You cannot evade or defeat me, boy. Your father lost to my power, and you are not him. Will _never_ be him," the Hood sneered, preparing to strike harder, sink deeper, this time. Wave after wave of psionic force he sent at the pilot, who refused to crumble or let him inside.

"Don't have to defeat you," grunted Scott Tracy, weaving a bit, but still on his feet. "…'M not in this alone."

Utterly focused, the Hood failed to grasp what his quarry was saying. Never noticed the changes taking place higher up on the cliff. Did not detect the smooth motion of grappling arms and foam-hoses, as the Island's crash system whispered to life.

If he'd had full access to Scott Tracy's mind, the Hood would have seen what was happening above and behind him. Instead, he continued to stalk the injured pilot, as a stone wall first projected, then swung downward, revealing a skinny, bespectacled engineer.

Brains rushed out of that passage at the head of a mechanized army. Not just Max, but every repair and maintenance bot on the Island came rattling out through the cliffside door, all of them tracking the Hood. Not being human, they had no brain waves, and could not be sensed by a telepath.

Like a flock of steel mountain goats, they sprang to surround and confront the Hood, who was still some yards from Scott. Then Grandma remotely swiveled the leeward foam-cannon and pulled her trigger, sending a roaring torrent of dense, sticky suds blasting straight at their startled invader.

Might have been _that,_ Max's electrical jolt, Brain's diamagnetic lift-beam, or just Scott's good, solid punch that knocked their attacker unconscious… but they never found out for sure.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Thunderbird 3, in space near the giant Pac Orbital docking rig-_

By this time, Alan R. Tracy had squirmed up out of the straps and copilot's seat. He was sick and dang tired of being left in the cockpit, while everyone else saved the day. Seriously, he wouldn't have put up with that crud in a videogame. Danged if he'd let it keep happening here, in actual life. Not when his family needed him.

Navigating 3's main passage like a pro, Al found his brother and sister a few minutes after he'd set the Bird on auto. Followed their locator beacon into the aft head, which was now an organic-mechanical nightmare of viewscreens, cables and ductwork, framing the Mechanic.

"Oh, crap…" Alan whispered, almost doing just that. Took him a second to realize that the hulking cyborg was frozen, trapped by the stasis patch on his tattooed chest. "How did _he_ get in here?!"

Kayo snagged her blond brother out of the air, sending the novice Thunderbird pilot right into a pulsing bulkhead.

"Through an airlock, after that explosion, would be my guess," said their brother, John. "Not sure what he's after, besides escape. If he wanted to seize the ship, he's had plenty of chances."

Alan's brain was racing like his favourite rally team after the checkered flag.

"Okay, we got him… and maybe he knows about Dad, right? John, maybe we can make him tell us where Dad is! Listen, I mean it! We can't just hand him over to the GDF! He'll escape again and probably kill a base full of troops on his way out!"

John made brief, intense eye-contact, then looked away. Kay had always been able to make him listen, though. She'd always had the secret key that unlocked John Tracy.

"Alan's right," she said suddenly. "Before we do anything else, we've got to make him tell us what really happened to Dad. Giving him to the GDF is as good as setting him loose, plus killing bunches of people while doing it. You _know_ they can't hold him, John. They'll screw things up, trying to put him on trial."

Point taken. Instead of replying directly, their tall, red-haired brother folded both arms across his chest and lowered his head; looking deeply inward at plans upon unfolding plans.

Drifting there in a weirdly altered bathroom, next to a stasis-locked killer, Alan and Kayo waited for John to come up with a strategy. Some way to keep the Mechanic on ice _and_ find their missing father. After a moment or two, the astronaut looked at his siblings again, saying,

"I've got an idea. How do you feel about breaking the law?"


	25. Chapter 25

Thank you for reading and reviewing. I very much appreciate the feedback. As always, I'm having a blast spending time with the Tracys. Yet again, further edited. :)

**25**

_Thunderbird 3, in parking orbit near one of Earth's busiest docking rings-_

"How do you feel about breaking the law?" John had asked them, as the surviving GDF maintenance drones zipped through space, clearing the mess outside. As for the Tracys, they were still clustered inside the aft head, along with a towering, stasis-locked cyborg.

Kayo shrugged her slim shoulders in response to the question, as if thinking: _What the h*ll difference does __that__ make?_

Alan was slightly more nervous, or maybe just very against getting caught and arrested. They were in trouble enough, already.

"Depends on the law, I guess," he hedged, in a voice that cracked only a little. "What d'you have in mind?"

John glanced across at the Mechanic, who was beginning to look as though he meant to stay frozen in stasis. (A double-plus very good thing.) The cyborg's hot-metal-and-fried-meat scent still hung in the air like a chemical haze, harsh and unsettling. Whatever. Turning his attention back to Alan and Kayo, John flashed that brief, razor-blade smile of his.

"I mean illegal data scans, security breaches, trespass, breaking and entering… and possibly criminal mischief. Hold the questions. I'll explain in a hurry. You know how the Arctic seed banks and Eden were set up as a fail-safe? A way for future humans to cope with global catastrophe?"

Kayo and Alan both nodded; doing strange things to their already floating hair and making it seem they were bobbing along underwater. Having gained that much assent, their astronaut brother went on.

"There are also a series of "Arks" … hollowed asteroids, really… containing survival gear, meds, decontamination units, plus billions of seeds and frozen embryos, in case we nuke ourselves back to the Pleistocene, and need to rebuild civilisation. The arks were conceived as havens. A way to re-seed Earth or a future colony world, if our planet's no longer an option."

Kayo's dark, delicate eyebrows lifted.

"How'd I miss that one, in school?" she wondered. "Besides, you know, cutting class."

John kicked off of their motionless guest, drifting across to one of those organic-seeming new viewscreens. Over one shoulder, he said,

"You haven 't heard, because it's deliberately not common knowledge. Earth Gov doesn't want tourists or vandals mucking around with plan Z. I'm a curious guy, though. Shadow-nets and unexplained masses at 22 degrees above the ecliptic tend to attract my attention. Anyhow, I poked around and found out. Didn't make any difference at the time, so I didn't inform the family."

Now, though, matters had just crossed that red-hot "need to know" barrier. The plan he'd come up with was this: first, they would scan and record the digital portions of the Mechanic's brain, learning whatever he knew of Dad's "accident". Then, heading up and across to that cordon of re-fitted asteroids, they would break into Ceres (Ark 12); leaving their neutralised prisoner packed in amid tons of flash-frozen seeds and embryos.

_"Their_ massed bio-signatures will disguise _his,"_ John continued, saying, "It's well off the beaten orbit, and d*mn secure from everyone else but me. If we need to, we can always go back and reclaim him… but in the meantime, he won't be disturbed or awakened. The GDF will have custody… they just won't know it."

All the same, Alan crafted a sign out of silvery space cloth and jet-black indelible ink, hanging it around the Mechanic's thick neck with electrical tape. _**DON'T,**_ it read, in big, block letters. _**SERIOUSLY, JUST DON'T.**_

Announcing the second part of their training flight, John and Alan next cleared things up with local control and the GDF's Captain Carling.

"We'll be performing evasive maneuvers and shielding drills," John explained, over comm. "May disappear from your screens for a while, but it's just further practice."

"Understood, Thunderbird 3," Carling replied. "As a heads-up, the brass will be staging an inquest regarding a cloaked shuttle that somebody detonated, so stay in touch."

"Will do, Sir," promised John (by this time already back in the cockpit). "Sort of curious about that shuttle, myself."

He did not breathe easy until they were well away from Pac Orbital and off local radar. At that point, flying away from Earth at a tangent, John Tracy turned to face his younger brother and sister.

"Alright," he ventured, "Time for a _'what the h*ll were you thinking'_ lecture… only I don't even know where to start. Do you have any idea how badly this joyride of yours could have gone wrong?"

Alan hunched up in his seat straps, feeling all kinds of guilty and miserable.

"We were only trying to help," he objected. "Plus, maybe… if we hadn't taken the Bird to come get you… the Mechanic would have been down on the Island attacking Grandma and Brains, not out here in space."

John shook his head, sending red-golden hair drifting like seaweed; his portable keyboard floating off at the end of its tether.

"That's beside the point, Al. You had no idea at the time, that the Hood meant to strike Island Base. I'll grant you this dumbass stunt split his forces… but only because you managed not to get captured or killed. If you'd botched the launch or crashed into a freighter…"

"Worth it," snapped Kayo, looking defiant.

John halted to stare at her, blurting,

_"What?"_

"I said, it was totally worth the risk. We needed your help, and couldn't wait for a stupid, slow GDF shuttle and mail plane. Maybe it wasn't the _best_ plan, but it worked. You're here, and we caught the Mechanic. I'm not sorry, and I'd do it again to come find you… just like we'd all do, for Dad."

Because, deep down, that's what all this had been in aid of; Kayo, very much missing the brother she'd not seen in years. Trying out ways to locate whatever was left of their father, Jeff Tracy.

Her big green eyes clashed with John's narrowed aquamarine ones; Alan looking from brother to sister and back again, like he was watching a hand-grenade tennis match. Neither John nor Kay would back down or break eye-contact… until something pinged their high-soaring rocket.

_"Warning! You are about to enter restricted space. This zone is off-limits," _chimed a canned, cheery voice. _"Please divert course to marked shipping lanes, immediately."_

Murmuring,

"The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone by ninety degrees, and dial again,"

John cloaked Thunderbird 3. Using a bit of fancy projection, he then generated a 3-D electronic decoy. A few more taps to the keyboard made that mock crimson Bird alter its course to a safer region of space. Nice and obedient.

Ceres, meanwhile, had resolved itself from pale dot to greyish disc with a single, brilliant white point and massive crater near dead centre. Not that they were home-free. Not yet. A loose sphere of sensor buoys and security drones had got to be quietly passed through, first. John took the opportunity to change the subject, call home and then teach the kids a few piloting tricks. Scott could handle discipline, he decided, once his older brother had packed off the Hood and recovered from crashing.

About twenty minutes from Ceres, John let Alan take over the Bird; offering occasional advice as he focused on hacking Ark 12's very basic security system.

"Seems a little unfair," Kayo mused, hanging in midair behind John's right shoulder. "I mean, think of all those poor people scraping themselves together after a giant war or disease or…"

"Zombie apocalypse," offered Alan.

"Asteroid strike," John suggested.

"…what_ever_. They manage to survive disaster and build a spaceship, then follow a beacon to Ceres only to find the _Mechanic_. He'll tear them to shreds."

John glanced up at his scowling sister. Shrugged a little, saying,

"A: he may not be here that long. B: if they read Al's sign, they'll leave him the h*ll alone… and C: for all we know, the Mechanic would make an excellent disaster-scenario leader. He was doing alright at the game I hit him with. Making choices I'd characterize as 'responsible' or 'heroic'."

Shifting his attention back to sifting out weak GDF passwords, John added,

"I don't know what part he played in Dad's accident; whether or not the Hood controlled him, like he tried to do Scott. Brains 'll have to figure that out, from our digital scans. I don't like him any better than you do… but the Mechanic seems to be more than just a raging psychotic."

Alan shuddered, still creeped out to the depths of his core by that hulking, much-tattooed cyborg.

"I'll be glad when he's off the Bird and out of our hands," the boy groused. "Pack him in under the lima beans and squash, or something. No one wants _those._ He'll be buried for _centuries_."

Added Kayo,

"Beans, squash and black licorice whips. The refugees would have to be _really_ desperate to dig into garbage like that."

John relaxed enough to smile at them.

"From personal experience, I'd like to add natto to the list," he put in. Then, "Oh, sh*t. There's someone I'm supposed to call. Conroy's sister, Drew. Have to wait until later, though."

…Because they had rounded Ceres' limb, aiming for a poorly hidden docking port. Bang at the centre of a bright-shining salt patch in Occator Crater, the port had a standard model airlock with minimal security. No sense making things worse for those putative hardscrabble refugees, after all.

It took John, Kayo and Alan about ten minutes to extend Ceres' docking tower, line up and effect capture. A matter of careful braking and steering rockets, then gentle drift followed by the sudden **THUNK** and **SNAP**of successful docking.

After all that, Thunderbird 3 was one with the grey, pockmarked planetoid below; her mass and inertia making it actually tilt. A bit of rocket adjustment cured most of that problem, leaving them free to proceed with fetching the Mechanic and dumping him in Ceres' deepest, least critical storage compartment. That was the plan, at any rate.

"In and out," John advised, as they headed aft to pick up their frozen stowaway. "Fifteen minutes, tops. Thunderbird 3's mass will affect Ceres' orbit, so we've got to be done and gone before anyone notices."

On the bright side, security tapes could be erased, and vanishingly few people knew that those arks even existed. Ought to have been very simple.

Right?


	26. Chapter 26

Lots to report! My niece has graduated A-school and is engaged to be married! XD Lord willing and the creek don't rise, I'll be able to head out to Texas to attend her wedding. She's the one that Janey was based on, back in the day. :') Edited more.

**26**

_Tracy Island, amid craggy outcrops pounded by roaring currents and thundering surf, hard by the leeward emergency landing pad-_

Hackenbacker faced into stinging spray and glaring late sun as he slid-scrambled-hopped his way down from tunnel and pad to that narrow black beach. A man of ideas, not actions… best friends with a robot and astronaut… 'Brains' struggled to make the descent without killing himself in the process. A great deal of flailing and scrabbling ensued. A few cuts, many bruises.

He might have made use of the Hood's parked luxury shuttle, had Brains known how to unlock and fly the thing. The Hood, himself, was emphatically down; bludgeoned unconscious by the fourfold impact of tool-wielding drones, slimy crash foam, mag-levitation and Scott Tracy's fist. The crafty psion would need to be placed in restraint, then handed off to the proper authorities, as International Rescue had no detention facilities.

That the Hood might know something of Jeff Tracy's fate made it doubly… _trebly…_ important to get him straight to a GDF interrogator. But that would come later. Here and now, there were jagged damp rocks to negotiate, on a thin, winding path that would have challenged a housefly or gecko.

Scott crouched on a boulder, below, still half in shock from his crash and mental possession. More than the Hood, Brains hurried for _him,_ because unseen internal damage could strike in a flash, hemorrhaging organs and filling the lungs up with blood. The downed pilot would need a quick med-scan, then transport indoors for treatment.

Max could have done the job faster, being designed to explore the surface of any world, whatever its pressure, composition or temperature range. Unfortunately, the bold little robot was occupied, industriously binding and dragging the Hood. He hadn't a limb or a grasper to spare.

In any case, Brains was the one who reached Scott Tracy first. Taking a deep breath for courage, the engineer braced both his feet and leaned over. This close to the water, he not only heard but could _feel_ the rumbling crash of each monstrous, oncoming surge. Keeping his eyes on the pilot's face, Brains extended a thin, shaking hand. He intended to help the young man off of that wave-battered rock and onto the access path, forgetting that Scott's solid mass was likely to pull them both over.

"T- Take hold, and then, ah… then j- jump!" he called, over the noise of that raging sea.

Scott dug the fingers of one hand into a crack in the shuddering stone. Stretched far over white, spuming water to reach for Brains' hand. Missed once, then connected, allowing the engineer to steady his vault from rock to shore. Sort of.

Unbalanced, they would have tumbled and fallen right into the ocean. But a heartbeat before they went swimming, a couple of silver fueling drones buzzed across to help out, adding their anti-grav field to Scott's shuffling, scrambling leap.

Brains grimaced as the two machines aided them back to firm ground. He steeled himself mentally, ready for Scott's faint praise and brisk dismissal. Only, rather than grunting "thanks" and then striding off, the fighter pilot took a moment to talk. Shook his hand and smiled even, saying,

"Thank you for coming to help me, Brains. I owe you one, and I'm sorry for ditching Dad's Bird. Lots going on, but… sorry for a lot of things."

Personal interaction wasn't the engineer's primary skill; not on a barren cliffside, still dripping with emerald crash foam and spray. Nevertheless, he tried on a cautious smile.

"Y- You are most, ah… most w- welcome, Scott… and in d- destruction lies opportunity. I had intended to, ah… to upgrade Th- Thunderbird 1, in any case. Now I shall s- simply rebuild, to an even h- higher standard of, ah… of p- perfection."

Indeed, the thought excited all of his fondest design instincts, as plans for a faster, longer-range Thunderbird flashed through that quicksilver mind. Didn't have much time for shouted conversation, then; what with scanning the pilot's vital signs and supervising the Hood's temporary restraint system.

Scott let him work; content to rest for a bit, as a trio of GDF heli-jets appeared on the horizon, their noise at first drowned by the ocean. Must've lost consciousness at some point, because the rest was a blur of whining impellers, loud voices and then someone's powerful grip, loading him onto a stretcher. Comm-squawk and barked commands, engine vibration and fuel smells… it all added up to safety and comfort, as far as Scott was concerned.

He wasn't hurting much, yet… that would come later… but he felt so utterly _drained._ So completely unable to fill the Colonel's size-14 shoes.

"Not sure I can do this, Dad," Scott whispered inside of himself, where nobody else could listen, or judge. "He was right. I'm _not_ you. Won't ever be… but I can d*mn well try, and maybe helping Grandma and Lee run IR, means keeping you somehow alive… _God,_ I sound like I'm drunk!"

Then, laughing a little, deep there inside of himself, Scott Tracy passed into darkness and sleep.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Much later, back at the main roundhouse hangar-_

When, some days afterward, Thunderbird 3 glided home, her crew found Scott and Gordon already up and healing. The Hood was gone, taken away with his impounded shuttle by Colonel Casey and several dozen GDF troopers.

The larger bits of Thunderbird 1 had been dredged up for study, while Brains designed something much better. A few tattered shreds of biodegradable foam still smeared the leeward shore, but you would've had to squint pretty hard to spot them.

Dr. Hackenbacker had placed all of his maintenance drones back on docile "I, Robot" mode; present to serve and repair, not defend. (For the moment, at least.) Captain Taylor helped here and there, itching to leave for Base Shadow-Alpha, but wanting to greet "Jason", Alvin" and "Tina," still more. Family didn't grow on no trees, after all. Not even out in the great state of Texas.

Scott, Virgil, Gordon, Grandma, Brains and Lee, they all had to wait a bit in the hangar, because John never skipped any steps of his postflight. (Difference between a live astronaut and a dead one? Attention to detail. Adherence to holy-writ checklists. Drilled all that into Alan, too. Not Kay, though.)

Anyhow, when they _did_ finally emerge, the backslaps, fierce hugs and shakings were all that John had been dreading; all that made home what it was. Noisy, confusing, emotion packed. High gravity, too.

Had John not been proud (and a Tracy) he might have had trouble standing up under that onslaught of welcoming family. Seriously, he'd been victory-piled on the baseball field less roughly than that.

Everyone wanted to know what had happened. Why the cloaked side-trip? Had he really been just teaching Alan and Kayo to fly? Had the kids been thoroughly disciplined yet, or would Scott, Lee and Grandma have to lay down more of the law?

It was too much for the quiet redhead, who quickly grew cool and remote. Overwhelmed, he had to get away. Be by himself for a while. Promised to explain it all soon, handing Brains a small memory drive as down-payment.

"The Mechanic," he told them, kissing Grandma's cheek and then stalking off. "Long story, requiring copious beer. Thanks. I'll be somewhere else out of touch, if nobody needs me."

Right. Not much had changed, except everything. No Dad meant that each backslap and welcoming hug had been stained with his reason for coming back home: Jeff Tracy's complete disappearance. Maybe his actual death.

To Grandma, John had whispered, "I'm sorry," and even, "I love you." The others could figure it out from the fact he'd shown up.

Home was a weird, gutted place, missing its central figure. There was no Dad to talk over maneuvers… to drink or trade stories with. Just dense, humid air and gravity like a coat full of lead. No flight, here. No nothing but plodding along in two Goddam dimensions, dodging the people who loved him.

Yeah. Cyclones of stuff to feel and think about, so John pulled his default stunt and just crammed it away for never. First order of business, once he'd finally managed "alone", was a long and very hot shower, something the astronaut hadn't experienced in over 2.47 years. (Mars' sputtering, lukewarm brine didn't count; tasting rusty and leaving you crusted with salt.) Next came that promised cold beer and an auto-chef pizza, consumed out on the balcony of his old bedroom suite, with only some curious birds for company. Tried to nap for a bit but felt weirdly squeezed lying down in a bed. Like it was pushing him up at the ceiling, or something.

By nightfall, after getting himself together, John was ready to face the traditional beach-side conference. Ready to talk about what had very nearly killed… not just he and the kids… but the frozen Mechanic, as well. It was one hairy h*ll of a story, starting with Ceres, itself.


	27. Chapter 27

**27**

_Tracy Island, just outside the house, late that same afternoon-_

Being a smart girl (and wary of retribution) Kayo skivved off shortly after they'd landed in Thunderbird 3 and flashed through their health scans. No undue physical stress, no hidden pathogens and everyone focused on John meant she could melt away like an ocean fog, thinking: _Don't look this way, don't notice me._ Funny, how that trick always seemed to work out for her.

She could have gone anywhere, after escaping that noisy, exuberant, tinged-with-pain hangar. Chose to go where no one would think to search: a giant kawaka tree that grew like a towering pillar, right through the balcony overlook. High in its swaying branches, the girl was hidden from sight; able to think. To be by herself for the first time in nearly a week.

A lot had happened in six short days, much of it downright scary (and mostly her fault). Only, she still wasn't sorry she'd ship-jacked Thunderbird 3 to go after John. Just sorry he'd almost got killed two-and-three-quarters times while she did it. And… maybe a little bit sorry that Alan was down there alone right now, facing Grandma and Scott… but not enough to go join him. As the baby of the family, Alan wouldn't get much of a roasting, anyhow. Probably.

Having snagged a protein shake and energy bar on her way through the house, Kay settled her back to the tree's broad trunk, scooched herself into a comfortable sitting position, and started to eat. After six days in space, gravity felt weird, as did sunshine and moisture-drenched air that actually _moved._ All around her, a warm breeze set long leaves and stringy bark to swaying and clattering, causing the tree at her back to creak like the mast of an old-style sailing ship.

Tanusha let a feeling of normalcy come creeping back as she finished her chocolate-chip energy bar. Up and down were perfectly natural, and she _wasn't_ about to get squashed. Just needed time to adjust, was all. In the meantime, she couldn't get what had happened on Ceres out of her head.

The Mechanic wouldn't be trapped for long. That much, they'd very soon realized. _That, _and the fact that those asteroid "Havens" were lies, every d*mn one of them… because someone had gotten there first.

Kayo stared out past the heavily forested gorge, watching an ocean of old growth trees and darting, bright-coloured birds. A small, fuzzy pterosaur flitted nearby, pausing to light on a branch and preen his back before rasping aloud, then dropping away in a long, silent glide. After lizards and moths, or some such.

The smells of sea and that ever-wet tropical forest flooded senses deadened by six days in space. Must be worse for John, Kay figured. He'd been a month coming over, and before that a year on barren red Mars. No wonder he'd bolted for the safety of his rooms, needing alone-time before the evening's beachside debrief.

A small golden ant crawled over Kay's leg, intrigued by the crumbs of her energy bar. One tiny bug didn't bother her, but ants were never alone. Having found something interesting, the insect would soon summon friends, and that would end badly. Time to move on. Kayo chewed faster, then opened her strawberry shake and started on that.

What would Alan and John tell the others, she wondered? That Plan Z was a bust? Had been sabotaged, _gutted_ in 2027? That any desperate future refugees making their way to the Arks were totally screwed?

Kayo shivered as the sun dipped behind the mountain, bringing rapid twilight. Here and now, she and her brothers were safe; off of Ceres and back on Earth. Question was, who should be told of the damage, and how could IR reverse all that Red Path's agents had done?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Down in the hangar 3 waiting room, just beneath the round house-_

Alan had started out pretty well, with,

"See, what had happened was…"

Only, Grandma surprised him with a sudden, super-tight hug, saying,

"Sprout, I know ya got th' space-rescue bug as bad as y'r brothers is et up ta fly, explore oceans or bust through debris… but there's a time an' a place. One that don't take so many dang chances. Maybe I been holdin' onta you an' y'r sister so hard, 'cause y'r all I got left at home. Maybe I need ta let ya both in on th' family business… but it ain't been easy."

Sally tightened that hug, then stepped away, clearing her throat. Her blue eyes were flooded with tears that she wouldn't let fall because _Tracy._ Scott had been maybe about to deliver a lecture, but her outburst caught him as much by surprise as it had Alan.

Instead of barking that scheduled reprimand, the tall, handsome pilot placed a hand on their grandmother's shoulder. Stepping closer, he gave the old woman a brief, calming squeeze.

"Steady," he murmured. "No one was hurt, and maybe they got something out of the Mechanic that'll help us find Dad. We're not giving up, Grandma. We'll never give up."

Sally's slim shoulders straightened a bit, and she nodded, reaching up and across to pat Scott's comforting hand.

"I know, Boo. Rescue's our business, no matter who, no matter where, no matter how they landed in trouble, jus' like y'r daddy intended. It's jus'…"

"Hard," Al supplied, scuttling forward to add his own bit of arm-draping comfort. "Because this time, it's personal." He took a deep breath and then said, "I'm sorry we didn't ask first. Only, you guys were real busy at the time and, um… well, there wasn't much time to think."

"Kayo's idea, I take it?" Scott prodded, blue eyes gone all at once rivet-hard and intense.

Alan snorted aloud.

"You mean Shady McFisticuffs? Uh, yeah… Sort of. I mean, she can be pretty persuasive, but I _did_ really want to help her get John."

More family made everything better, right? It was all the fig leaf that he had to cover their crime with, and it didn't seem like enough. The boy tensed, expecting a shouted tirade, but Scott seemed more worried than angry.

"You could've got killed on my watch, Al. You and Kay could be dead, right now. John, too, if that half-assed space walk of his had gone one-tenth of one percent wronger." And then there was Gordon, who'd been beat up and shot, back in Haven; alive thanks to Virgil and Lee.

Sighing, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, Scott went on talking. More slowly, this time, as he fumbled to express himself.

"My bad. I should have included you two instead of always shrugging you off. You're Tracys. You belong on the team. But, like Grandma says, it's hard to take risks with the people you care about most. Me, Virge and John… we've been out there enough to make informed decisions. Gordon, too, for that matter… but you and Kay still see all the action and flash. None of the soreness, exhaustion and heartache." Looking down at the carpeted floor, Scott added,

"We lose them sometimes, Al. No words for how much it hurts, when someone who trusted you to pull off a miracle dies, half an inch out of your grasp."

Some Tracy emotional-distress beacon had pulled Virgil into the room as well, now that Thunderbird 3 was deep into fuel-up and maintenance. Picking up the thread of Scott's comment, Virge added,

"Makes it hard to sleep, sometimes. Eyes and voices, y'know? Recovering bodies, when folks 've died before we could get there. Telling relatives something kinder than what actually happened to their dad or their sister or kid…"

The husky cargo pilot looked bleak and forlorn as he sorted that tangle of painful emotions. A little awkward, too; as though he'd stripped off a private layer, exposing deep bruises beneath. Scott nudged him with a broad shoulder, having more sympathy than words. Grandma reacted, as well, reaching up to fuss with his rumpled plaid shirt collar. Virgil shook off the dark mood. Kissed Grandma's forehead and smiled a little. Then, turning back to Alan, he gave the youngest Tracy a searching look.

"It isn't all flashbulbs and fun, Al. I've learned that much since coming home to help out. This time, things worked out for all of us, and maybe we've got ourselves a recruit. Next mission might not go so smoothly, or maybe the one after that. You never know… and there's nothing wrong with staying a kid for a little while longer."

Yeah… Alan could see himself doing that. Staying at home, attending online classes and playing his video games just like he'd always done. But that was before he'd flown a Bird out in space. Before Dad, the Mechanic and Ceres.

The boy bit his lip, but the outcome was never in doubt. He shook his blond head, saying,

"I'm in. I wanna be part of the team. Whatever you guys and Kayo are facing, I'll deal with it, too. I'll pitch in with rescues and help you find Dad."

After all, who did they have but each other?


	28. Chapter 28

Stay healthy and well. Edited.

**28**

_What had happened on Ceres, according to Alan R. Tracy-_

Their situation dropped south like a frickin' lift car with shredded cables, not even kidding. First, because the Mechanic was somehow _shaking off the effects of a dang stasis patch._ Maybe the combo of flesh and robotics was just too much for the patch to handle at once? Whatever, the hulking machine-man would not stay frozen for long, meaning that Alan, Kayo and John had to dump his psychotic butt in a hurry, then scramble. Bad enough, right?

It only got hairrier, from there.

John had transferred control of Thunderbird 3 to Al, thinking (maybe): _what the heck, let the kid get some practice._ After all, the disaster arks were perfectly quiet and safe, visited once an Earth year by primitive roving security drones. Landing and getting inside of one should have been a dang cakewalk.

John handled the approach and docking figures, leaving actual flight, capture and lock-down to his youngest brother. The physical part was tougher than it sounded, because Ceres was a loose, rubbly mess with very low gravity and crap-all for atmosphere. Nothing like flying on Earth.

Alan had to reverse the Bird's orientation and blast retrorockets a hundred miles out, in order to slow them down to survivable docking speed. All this while cloaked and unable to access the Ark's nav system.

Not, y'know, that he needed any actual _help._ Alan was hardcore on top of it, for real. No problem at all… until their landing pad caved in like thin ice on a Kansas skating pond. Thanks to super low gravity, Thunderbird 3 didn't just lean the heck over and crash… but she also couldn't touch down directly. Had to sort of skip-hop like a flat stone on water, to reach a second, smaller emergency hatch, way the heck across Ceres.

(Nice thing about having a computer-nerd older brother? He could hack the crap out of the Ark system's dormant locator files. What was Kayo doing at the time? Laughing her butt off, enjoying the ride, because _Tanusha.)_

Anyways, the tall crimson rocket scraped and bounced her way over that gravelly, rock-and-ice landscape, creating this weird, float-y blizzard of stones. Alan flinched every time the shields got hit, but 3 didn't take any actual damage. Sounded and looked like a frickin' tornado, though.

Following John's instructions, Al bounced their stolen ride halfway around the boulder-strewn planetoid. There, in a broad, canyon-like trench, lay a second docking tower. (This one, he guessed, for sneakier refugees.) He'd fully expected his older brother to take over control at that point, but John shook his head, no.

"Try again," said the astronaut. "Slower, this time, with less rocket, more impeller."

They were all wearing helmets and strapped in tight by then, because S.O.P. was full safety gear for uncertain landings. Alan could not see his astronaut brother's face very well. John's voice didn't reveal much, either. Alan wanted to ask: _Are you sure?_ He didn't, though, because he was a Tracy. Dad wouldn't give up, and neither would anyone else in the family. Not his brothers, not Grandma, not Lee.

So, nodding seriously, Al took a deep breath, grabbed those controls and flew like his life depended on doing this right. Like the time for sims was over and gone.

Came in sort of slanted. Might've scraped the trench wall once or twice (creating noise like a screeching, grinding, slow-speed car crash) but didn't harm the Bird… that _you_ know about.

Got in there, though, docking tight with a spindly metal access tower at the very end of the trench. Didn't take a normal breath until the monitor flashed green and John announced,

"Capture."

Seconds later, Kay unstrapped to float free of her back-cabin crew seat.

"Well, that was… exciting," she drawled. "For a minute there, I thought we were just going to blast through Ceres while tossing our 'passenger' out a window."

John snorted a brief, dry chuckle.

"Sorry I didn't think of that, myself," he joked… maybe. Then, "Twenty minutes, tops. In, out, gone. The less time we spend cloaked, the less GDF suspicion we'll arouse."

Made sense, so, once he'd settled Thunderbird 3, Alan pushed up out of his seat to join his sibs floating at mid-cabin. Ceres had no real gravity to speak of, giving them just the faint ghost of "down" and "up". As for his brother and sister…

John looked tired. Kayo sparkled with sarcastic _"oh, this'll be fun"_ amusement. Surprisingly, they let him keep leading the way, like the mission was still all his to not screw up_._ Inside his helmet, Al nodded, saying,

"Okay, let's get this party started," or something equally cringey. (He preferred not to think about it.)

Kay rolled her green eyes hard enough to cause measurable seismic activity, but kept her mouth shut, following Alan and John off the flight deck. They'd left the frozen Mechanic back in a much-altered aft head, and there he still stood, magnetically locked to the deck. Parts of his armour were buzzing, and he seemed to be heating up, as did some of those flickering, organic bulkhead monitors.

"We may need to hurry our time frame," John suggested, after scanning whatever he could of the cyborg's stored data. "He's overwhelming the patch."

Only, those stupid magnetic boots would not come free of the ferric deck, and they wouldn't come off his feet, either. Might've been actually part of him, for all Alan knew.

Switching to plan C, Kay fetched a plasma torch and they just cut a circle of decking around him, making the Mechanic look like the world's largest, scariest action figure. _(Not poseable! Completely unsafe! Not recommended for anyone, __any__ age! Don't get yours, today!)_

Maneuvering his clunky butt through the Bird's narrow passages turned out to be a real joy, because no gravity did _not_ equal no inertia. Once you got him drifting in the right general direction, he was crap-hard to turn, or slow down.

Kay ended out riding on top like a paddling surfer, using a pole to push that frozen behemoth away from the bulkheads, while John shoved at the circle of chopped decking and Al led the way.

Long story short: it took a while to get him through Thunderbird 3 and out the handiest airlock. Next, they had to switch positions, so John could power up and then hack the dock tower's security panel. Add, say, six awkward more minutes.

Alan had been holding his breath while John worked. He'd expected blaring "gotcha" alarms, but the hatch cooperated, grinding open with just a low groan, then getting stuck halfway. His astronaut brother wrestled it open, stepping inside for a cautious look around before signaling Alan and Kayo to follow.

Lights should have come on in the docking tower. An instructional welcome message ought to have played. Only, none of that happened. The screens were there, lining walls of silvery metal and plastic, but no evident power. Not a good sign.

John brightened his helmet lamp, sending a beam of golden light lancing in every direction he looked. Kayo and Alan quickly did likewise, stabilising their drift against the hulking Mechanic.

"What's wrong?" Alan whispered, as all those years of creepy videogames and late-night slasher films rose up like clammy fog in his head.

John shrugged, as best he could in a spacesuit.

"Power outage would be my guess. Stick with the plan. Find the deepest, least accessible bin, lock him down, then get the h*ll out of Dodge."

"Yeah, okay. Just, y'know…" Al would really have liked a nuclear war-hammer or stack of explosive barrels, right then. Even a really stout tree branch.

John was already scanning the place, using that portable keyboard and screen of his.

"No licorice or lima beans," he remarked, "but I've located a storage area tagged: _dried protein broth- high calorie."_

"Sounds amazing," said Kayo, hoisting a slim, dark eyebrow. "First place I'd go for a meal."

Right. Alan shoved at Sarcasti-lass, sending both of them bouncing around the dark corridor. Meanwhile, John mapped a route, breaking concentration only to twist out of their way, whenever his flailing young siblings shot past.

"Got it," he announced at last. "Shouldn't take too long… but I'm picking up a weird energy signature. Something's trying to switch on."

And not, as it turned out, Ark-12.


	29. Chapter 29

**29**

_What happened on Ceres, according to Kayo (who saw much and said little)-_

Naturally, Alan had overreacted; new at all this, and flaunting his soft, gooey rawness. Faced with an empty, malfunctioning ark, Kayo stayed cool… but, yes. Even she had been taken aback.

Her younger brother had shoved the girl, sending them both on a ricocheted handball-like tour of that dim metal corridor. Once or twice, they nearly hit John, who went on scanning the premises like they weren't even there. Moments later, he grunted,

"Hunh. That's… fairly ungood."

It was hard to listen, bounce and scuffle with Alan at the same time, but Kayo succeeded. (Mostly because she truly _was_ that good.)

And, for the record, "ungood" in John-speak could mean anything from "stepped on a Lego" to "cuddle your nearest and dearest, we're screwed".

Twisting around in mid-corridor, Tanusha demanded,

"How much "un" are we talking about?"

Their red-haired brother puffed out a sharp breath. He began to respond, saying,

"Yeah. You two should probably head back to…"

Only, John never got a chance to finish that order. Between one breath and another, Ceres lurched back online and powered up. Searing white lights cut on, along with a harsh, ear-shredding feedback squeal. Screens that had remained dusty-dark since their arrival came to sudden, startling life; each one dominated by a hunched, shadowy figure. Male or female, Kayo couldn't be certain.

It was just a recording. Old, degraded and poor in quality. Plagued with static and skips. Also, until John braced himself against the frozen Mechanic and hauled them out of the air, Kayo and Alan were spinning and bouncing too much to get a good look.

Something else happened, right about then. The entire, relocated asteroid started to rumble and creak, dragging a string of muttered curses from John. The corridor's air pressure changed, too, as though Ceres had begun venting atmosphere.

_"…not be allowed to repeat the crimes of your past,"_ snarled that long-vanished speaker, once the feedback died down. _"You shall not be allowed the safety and respite required to renew your asinine conflicts! You have already doomed our world once, making hell on Earth! No more! Never again! Die, and make way for a new, cleaner era, one free of the virulent stain that is homo sapiens!"_

Alan's sky-blue eyes had gone saucer-wide, seeming to take up most of his face. John's sea-green ones narrowed like those of a tri-D gunfighter. As for Kay, she felt her forehead and ears tighten, her body tensing for action.

Blurted Alan, thinking that the red-cloaked speaker was live and present, somewhere on Ceres,

"What are talking about?! Earth is fine! It's totally almost cleaned up, except for some parts out west and in Asia, plus most of India, but we're working on it!"

That gloating, hunched figure never noticed, plowing right over Alan's shocked outburst.

_"It gives me tremendous satisfaction to picture the last few survivors reaching their promised haven, to find that all the stored foods have been poisoned, the seed stocks and gene banks rendered utterly sterile. Die, then, knowing you've failed. Die, with the curse of Red Path snatching away your lone hope. I am all that is left of my cell. I am the last… but so… ARE… __YOU__!"_

With that, the recording cut off, leaving only an ever-increasing rumble, and the faint smell of something beginning to burn.

"Back to Thunderbird 3, _now,"_ snapped John, not glancing up from his portable keyboard and screen. "Leave the Mechanic and _go_."

"But…" cried Tanusha and Alan, as both of them rounded on John.

"Can't afford the distraction," he remarked, still icy calm. "One in twelve-hundred odds, if you get the h*ll out of here, now."

Because Ceres was coming apart. Worse, the rest of those arks had been signaled, and they were now crumbling, too.


	30. Chapter 30

Stay safe and healthy, you guys. Not sure what else to do beside teach from home and write about fictional heroes. Borrowed a phrase from Quora.

**30**

_Later, out on the beach, with night fast drawing the curtains-_

A fire had been lit. Fed by wind and occasional tosses of cordwood, it cast a shifting red-orange glow on the people gathered around. Some nursed a beer or cold soda. Most sat on palm logs like slack, resting athletes: leaning forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped loosely before them. Grandma perched on a blanket and lawn chair, with Lee Taylor sprawled half an arm's length away. Tanusha refused to sit, slipping in and out of the group like a thin, wayward cat.

Dinner had been brought out and eaten. Chili and hotdogs, corn chips and Kayo's infamous campfire pizza. The story of what had happened on Ceres had outlasted dinner and sunset, and now the stars had begun to appear, one shy blink at a time, competing with sparks from the fire and lights from the house.

Scott Tracy took a long last pull of his beer, then tossed the empty bottle to Max. Glancing over at John (the last to appear, and still getting his gravity legs) the pilot demanded,

"You got some information about Dad? From the Mechanic, I mean?"

All around them, the music of sea breeze and ocean, of crackling fire and settling jungle filled in their pauses and spackled uncomfortable gaps. There was no real silence on Tracy Island.

John shook clear of some deep, private thought. Jerking his head at Hackenbacker, he said,

"I scanned the Mechanic's digital components in a hurry, then turned it all over to Brains when we got back. Didn't try breaking it down, at the time. Too busy."

Scott nodded, turning back from his red-haired brother to the engineer (incongruously garbed in a spotless white shirt, long trousers and tie).

"Well, Brains? Did you find anything in there about Dad? Was his flight sabotaged? Is he… was there anything there we could use to go find him?"

Hackenbacker cleared his throat self-consciously, never much liking an audience. Took off his glasses and wiped them clean on his shirt sleeve. Then, having marshalled his facts, Brains looked over at Scott and said,

"Th- The Mechanic was, ah… was n- not in full control of himself when, ah… when h- he relayed the s- signal that caused Mr. T- Tracy's engine malfunction. In s- some manner, he was, ah… was f- forced to do the Hood's bidding. The Zero-X experienced a s- sudden, massive, ah… massive p- power surge as a result of that b- broadcast."

"The explosion," mused Virgil, sitting nearby on a weathered old palm log. "But no one's found any trace of Dad's ship. If it really exploded, where are all the pieces? Where's _Dad?"_

"Maybe the Hood's got him?" supplied Gordon, still looking weary and pale; barely back on his feet after having been shot. "The Hood could've made it _look_ like an explosion, then hijacked the Zero-X to a… a secret base, or something."

Beside the Olympic swimmer, Alan nodded vigorously, saying,

"Maybe he's gonna try using Dad as a hostage! Trade him for one of the Birds, or something!"

Grandma snorted rudely, shaking her head so vehemently that silvery hair flopped into her face.

"There's no way in heck y'r daddy'd let hisself get caught by a cowardly, sneakin' creep like the Hood!" she snapped. "If he ain't here with us, it's because… 'cause he got blasted way further 'n faster than he meant to, is all!"

Scott smiled at their fierce, blue-eyed grandmother; the powerful solder that welded their family together.

"Yes, Ma'am," he agreed. "We'll find him. We've just got to look beyond Earth or even Earth orbit. The clue's in that data John scanned from the Mechanic. It's got to be."

And then, glancing across at their engineer again, he urged,

"That's job one, Brains. Find out exactly what happened, and where Dad ended up."

Hackenbacker took a nervous stab at adjusting his circuit-patterned blue tie.

"Th- That is precisely, ah… precisely m- my intention, Scott. Mr. Tracy showed f- faith in me when, ah… when n- no one else would. I sh- shall not fail him, n- now."

The pilot smiled a little. His own head still ached dully from the force of the Hood's attack. He could understand how being under that villain's compulsion could cause someone to commit a serious crime… but that didn't mean that Scott had forgiven the Mechanic. Not until Dad came home safe. And maybe, not even then.

A green log split open, popped and hissed in the fire, sending a shower of red-golden sparks shooting upward to play with the stars. Alan had said his piece about Ceres, then Kayo had filled in some details. There were still plenty of questions, though, so Scott shifted around on his uneven seat to face John.

"Right. So, what happened next?" he probed. "On the Ark? You got the kids hustled back to Thunderbird 3, and then what?"

The astronaut shrugged, fighting not to look as gravity sick as he felt.

"I did my humble best," he replied, about as clearly as ever.

The truth required some editing. What had happened, in those frantic few minutes after Alan and Kayo had launched themselves out of the hallway and back through that swaying dock tower, was that the situation had plunged alarmingly south. Double-plus ungood. Spectacularly, thudding f*cktangular.

See, Ark 12 had been equipped for emergencies with an old-style gravity generator. The kind that made use of a crushing spherical mass rotating at near relativistic speeds in order to create weak gravitational force. Normal equipment for that day and age.

Only, some homicidal jacktard had shoved the d*mn thing off center, causing it to wobble and thump like a clothes dryer loaded with shoes. Not just on Ceres, as it turned out, but all of the other Arks, too. Being made up mostly of rubble and ice, the shifted asteroids could not put up with such murderous shaking. They would have fallen apart like a hammered egg-pyramid… had John not tracked down, hacked and cut off their power source.

"The grav system was sabotaged and everything started to shake," he summarized vaguely, skipping most of the details. "Only, whoever set up the trap… some pre-conflict terrorist group called Red Path… didn't plan on _us._ They expected a raft-load of desperate refugees with no tech resources."

Someone, Lee, handed him another cold beer. John grunted his thanks but didn't pop open the drink. Not yet. Too busy explaining.

"Once the grav generators cut off, so did the worst of that shimmy. There was one problem solved… but the rest of that damage… sterilized seeds and embryos, poisoned food and water… yeah. That's still a headache. Don't know who the h*ll Red Path was… sorry, Grandma… but they meant to block any chance of recovery. They meant to destroy whatever was left of humanity."

Scott sighed gustily, rubbing at the back of his neck with one hand. Stifled tension still puddled in every tendon and joint, needing a very long run to relieve it.

"We'll have to get word to Colonel Casey and the World Council," he decided. "They can get to work re-stocking the Arks, in case mankind ever gets into that much trouble, again."

Then, squinting into the firelight, Scott asked another big question.

"What about the Mechanic? Did you ever find any lima beans?"

John smiled that brief, razor-blade smile of his. Shook his head, _no._

"Afraid not. Just freeze-dried protein powder and fish stock, out in a heavily destabilised area of the station. I didn't want to risk heading out that far, dragging a frozen machine-man."

"So…?" prodded Virgil, when the astronaut ceased talking to gulp down his beer. "What'd you do with him?"

John stood up and stretched on the black sand beach. Needed to pay the beer tax, most likely.

"I put him in quarantine," he replied. "The ark builders had super-flu to deal with, on top of everything else. They designed a comfortable lockdown facility to hold any refugees who reached Ceres presenting with symptoms. It was secure, safe and with plenty of lurid "no go" warnings plastered all over it. So, I threw him in there, and then shot like h*ll… sorry again, Grandma… headed for Thunderbird 3. Al flew us back. TinTin navigated. I strapped in and went to sleep."

Scott shook his head, snorting in quiet amusement.

"Not exciting enough to keep you awake, Little Brother?" he kidded, as the astronaut edged out of their firelit circle.

John could have told them the truth… that he'd been exhausted to the point of collapse… but it wouldn't have sounded good. Not Tracy. Not _Dad._ So, he shrugged again, saying,

"Just wanted to hang back and let the kids fly what they stole, without a babysitter looking over their shoulder. Worked, didn't it? Al's a da… really good pilot. Kay had his back. They didn't need me. End of story."

Scott smiled. Maybe it was the beer or the warmth of that fire. Lee's five-alarm chili, or the fact that almost everyone was safe at home, but he felt… _confident._ Hopeful. Like they were going to pick up the shards of Dad's dream and make it fly as a team. As a family.

Looking past wavering sparks, up at the stars, Scott silently promised whoever would listen: _We'll find our Dad. We're not giving up on him, ever. And until then, we'll save every life that we can, just like he'd want us to._

Because International Rescue was more than machines. It was more than money, or Jeff Tracy. International Rescue was hope and heart and the courage to do whatever it took, whatever the danger, always.


End file.
